Evangelion Genocide: Extended
by Rommel
Summary: To all things, an end.
1. Dispositions

Notes: insert legal disclaimer here. Yeah, yeah, I'm too lazy to write one myself. Now, the main reason for re-writing this is that, well, you know something is bad when you can't go back and read your own stuff without cringing. It also gives a chance to further develop some of the themes and symbols that didn't quite work out. Is this cheating? Yeah, probably. But this is the internet so whatever. I did have trouble trying to figure out if I wanted to publish this as a new story, since there is going to be a massive amount of new material, and old material is going to get chopped up, or if I should just update older chapters as I go. I decided to do both for the sake of consistency.

I also wasn't entirely sure if it would be presumptuous to write a footnote explaining some of the metaphors, themes, etc, but decided against it. I might do so in the future if anyone is interested. Thanks go to Arkiel for the thorough job of pre-reading. Also to Big D and Mike for all the input and the chatting.

All feedback is welcome.

Note to readers: I know horizontal lines can be annoying, but FFN strips the blank lines that I use to separate scenes and I have to put something there for readability.

--Rommel, March 2007

Edit: revised August 2009, thanks to some feedback from readers. Hopefully certain plot points will be clearer now.

* * *

**Evangelion** **Genocide: Extended**

**"Man is the measure of all things" -Protagoras.**

**Genocide 0:01 / Dispositions.**

**

* * *

  
**

Room 303 in the Cranial Nerve Ward was located at the far end of a long corridor, deep inside the fortress of Central Dogma.

Shinji Ikari, Third Child of the Evangelion Project, didn't know what had compelled him to come. Perhaps it was the need to reach out to someone who just might be able to understand what he was going through; or perhaps it was the desire not to be alone—that primal instinct to seek out companionship out of desperation and an overwhelming fear of loneliness.

But more than anything, he wanted someone to talk to; someone in whose words he could find some measure of comfort, that tiny spark of reassurance that would make all the pain worthwhile.

He couldn't talk to Misato--even when she actually came home they barely saw each other anymore and she seemed to have so dedicated herself to her work that he hardly thought his problems would matter to her. He couldn't talk to Rei Ayanami, not after what he'd seen and what he'd learned about her.

There was simply no one else left.

Fluorescent illumination flooded everything with harsh light, reflecting off the towers of medical equipment and the polished tile floor so that all colors appeared to wash out into a white flash. The air was cold, loaded with the heavy scent of disinfectants—the same nauseatingly sterile smell he'd come to associate with the worse moments of his young life. Given its large size, the room was clearly intended to deal with multiple casualties, but there was only a single bed near the far end.

A single bed for a single patient, who might have passed away without anyone noticing if not for the constant beeping of the EKG machine that echoed the rhythm of her heart. She lay sedated, curled up beneath the sheets, her disheveled red hair spilling over the pillow under her head, an I.V. line injected into her bandaged left wrist nourishing her with a bag of liquid hanging from a stand by the bed.

She looked so small as he approached her. Even though the sheets only revealed the contours of her body, there was no hiding how young she was.

Shinji didn't know what was wrong with her. The grownups hadn't bothered to explain anything, probably deeming him just a child who would not able to understand. And maybe he didn't, maybe they were right. After all, he was here for himself instead of for the girl that lay on the bed. The reality of that fact sickened him ... but, still, he was here.

"Asuka ..." Shinji called softly, his throat dry. "Please, talk to me."

There was no reply.

He reached down cautiously and grasped Asuka's shoulder. Leaning over her, he caught a glimpse of her face and noticed that she looked oddly peaceful. Her pretty features, which were outlined against the pillow, seemed relaxed in a way Shinji had never seen them before, blissfully lost to her own sad situation.

But even that thought troubled him—because Asuka was supposed to be energetic, loud, outgoing. Seeing her lying here wasting away was a hard blow to stomach. No comfort could be found in the medications that coursed through her system and kept her from waking. It wasn't sleep; it was a last measure of escape, the only one that could be found besides death.

Shinji felt almost as sorry for her as he did for himself.

"Asuka ..." he whispered again, tugging at her. "Asuka, talk to me."

Nothing. She didn't move; didn't make a noise. And though Shinji knew she couldn't help it because of her condition, her indifference felt like a cold stab at his heart. Had she been awake, he knew she would have called him names, and made his life miserable. He thought that would have been preferable to nothing.

Had she been conscious he would have never come. So terrified was he that he simply wouldn't have been able to gather the courage to come see her. Regardless of how badly either of them might need someone.

He was too much of a coward.

"Asuka ..." Her name sounded hollow, meaningless. She had always been so proud of it. He shook her again, hoping that perhaps she could hear him so deeply within her own subconscious. "I killed someone."

The admission was like an open invitation for the memories. An onrush of emotions so powerful they threatened to wash away all composure. Pain—disgust—anger. All directed inwards. He could still feel on his hand the weight of Kaoru's body ... the bones crushing. He just wanted to tell her. Somehow, in his mind the thought that she might forgive him for what he'd done to someone else would make it better. Asuka would understand because she was the only one that could.

But she would do nothing.

"I killed ..." his voice trembled and faded. Then his heart tightened in the cold silence, and a rush of anger at the uncaring girl crashed through him. "Asuka, say something. Anything! Please! ASUKA!"

He shook her violently, his voice rising to a sharp, utterly desperate scream. His fingers clawed into the thin material of her sheets; into the soft flesh of her shoulder. He felt tears beginning to run down his cheeks, and with a final effort yanked at her with all his strength.

Asuka's limp form rolled silently onto her back. Several of the sticky leads of the EKG peeled off her body and sprang back on the cords that connected them the bedside machine, lying scattered haphazardly on the mattress. The small hospital blouse that was all she wore came undone, her flesh looking sickly white under the lights. The sheets slipped away, falling rustling softly on the floor.

Shinji straightened, his eyes wide.

He stared at her naked body now sprawled on the bed; her pale young breasts exposed to the air, rising gently as she breathed; the flat stomach; the flaring hips disappearing beneath the underwear-like diaper; the creamy white thighs. She was barely a teenager, yet already so much of a woman.

How many times had he wanted to see this?

Asuka had always gone out of her way to tease him, to drive him crazy with desire only to call him a pervert and scream at him, simultaneously offering and denying him what they both knew he couldn't have. But despite the abuse he had endured at her hands, she was the object of his fantasies—the thing that fueled his sexual urge more than any other.

He was only vaguely aware that it was normal for boys his age to have these sort of feelings. It was all part of being a teenager, of growing up. He had heard all that in the sex ed. classes the students were forced to listen to in which the teachers would go on about unprotected sex and abstinence. Nobody ever paid any attention. It was all normal.

Except he didn't feel normal.

And this was no fantasy.

Asuka lay so invitingly before him, more open than she had ever been before, as if she were waiting for him to act. She was broken—the girl that would fight him and scream at him was gone, replaced with a naked body. All he had to do was reach out and ... violate her.

Shinji took a step back, feeling his chest tighten horribly with guilt; the sad expression on his face replaced with one of revulsion.

This was his fault: he should have helped her when the Fifteenth Angel broke into her mind; should have done something other than sit in his Eva, hearing her scream as her psyche was torn to pieces. And afterwards, he should have been there to comfort her, to let her know that she was not useless and need not be alone.

Because, despite everything, they had shared a close bond through their Evas. He was supposed to understand her just as he had here come hoping she would do the same for him.

This was his fault ... because he had done nothing.

As she would do nothing for him.

"I'm...sorry, Asuka." The feeling of sickening self-disgust rolling through him choked his words and a gloomy, heavy silence enveloped the room once again, broken intermittently only by the EKG's electronic heartbeat and his quiet sobbing.

Shinji didn't try to call for Asuka again, and rushed out of her room moments later, still in tears.

* * *

**CENTRAL DOGMA, TOKYO-3**

**THREE MONTHS LATER**

* * *

A long time had passed since the incident with the last Angel, and Sub-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki was still in awe of the cold manner in which his superior handled himself whenever business was being conducted. But even more awe-inspiring was the fact that Gendo Ikari, a man who did not know the meaning of the word compromise, had proven very adept at politics.

Watching from the secret surveillance room next to Ikari's office he could sense more than see the other's contempt for the new bureaucratic pawn the Ministry of the Interior had sent to replace the deceased Kaji Ryougi.

"I trust you have brought what we agreed on," Ikari said, as he turned away from the huge window that dominated an entire side of his office and fixed the man in front of him with a glare. "Otherwise, the purpose of this meeting is merely a courtesy to your superiors."

The office was a massive space, with Ikari's desk placed in the center; the Tree of Life, that staple of mystics and alchemists through the ages, was scrawled on the floor, beneath Ikari as if to suggest his dominance over life and death, and heaven itself.

The man he was talking to was Junichi Nakayima, appointed liaison between NERV and the Civil Reconstruction Council, and agent of the Japanese Ministry of the Interior—in other words, a spy.

"Yes, I have, Commander Ikari," Nakayima said. He was athletically built, but was not tall--at least not taller than Ikari--and wore the black uniform that was standard for Ministry field agents. His hair was black and closely cropped so that he looked more like a grunt fresh out of training than a bureaucrat. His features were narrow, and unmistakably oriental.

Gendo Ikari, on the other hand, cut a much more imposing figure. He was broad-shouldered and tall, his face permanently chiseled into a stern mask that demanded compliance even on the most menial of subjects. A short beard closely followed his jawline, and his glasses that lent him an image of ruthless intelligence. He wasn't just NERV's commander, he was the organization's absolute ruler.

Nothing happened inside the Geo-Front without his knowledge or consent. It was only fitting; he was the reason why NERV had endured as long as it had despite being surrounded by enemies.

Ikari walked to his desk, his footsteps echoing in the eerie silence.

Nakayima reached into his jacket pocket, producing a small, emerald-green disk encased in a thick transparent plastic which he carefully set on Ikari's desk.

"I must admit I was starting to doubt you." Behind his thick spectacles, Ikari's eyes flashed briefly to the disk before returning to Nakajima. "A man in my position has to be wary of even the closest ally. No offense to you personally, of course."

"Of course," the man repeated. "I would imagine that is why my superiors agreed to let NERV borrow the information on the disk, sir. We are in this together now, and we believe a gesture of faith such as this should go towards easing our relationship. We also believe it would encourage closer ties now that it seems the UN is pushing for disarmament."

There had never been any doubt that the Ministry of the Interior would try to push another agent inside NERV following the death of Special Agent Kaji. Information of the sort he had provided them with was surely worth more than the life of one agent, maybe more than two, or three, or a dozen. But Nakayima seemed like an odd choice. He was by no means the caliber of agent usually fielded by the Ministry.

Since caution was the better part of valor, Fuyutsuki had already sent people to check up on his background and found it impossible to trace him to any intelligence training school. This left him with the conclusions that Nakayima was either the worst spy in the world or had the best cover in the world.

Ikari sat in his chair and leaned forward, placing his elbow on his heavy wooden desk and lacing his fingers in his customary manner. "Very well," he said. "If you don't mind, I should like this opportunity to have you answer a question."

Nakayima stiffened slightly, but said, "Not at all."

"The government has cut our budget again. Would you care to explain why?"

"Politics, sir," Nakayima replied promptly. "They believe it would look suspicious for NERV to retain its priority on their funding program now that it is no longer vital for our security. Additionally, the funds for the reconstruction efforts have to come from somewhere and only so much money can come from other projects, so NERV must share the burden, as it were. After all, it is because of NERV that Tokyo-3 needs to be rebuilt."

"It is because of NERV that the human race is still around to be concerned with money," Ikari retorted. "We are owed more than empty pleasantries."

Fuyutsuki narrowed his eyes. The problem was not money; NERV would take what it needed for its existence from the Civil Reconstruction Council's fund regardless of budgets, and from certain other private investors. What concerned Fuyutsuki was the fact that NERV, as Nakayima had put it, was no longer vital.

NERV's operations, and the incredible amount of power it wielded over all other civilian and military agencies, had always been predicated on the fact that it was indispensable. That had all changed in the last few months.

However, true to their word, certain interested parties within the UN had made good on their agreements and held up the removal of the Special Protection Order that granted NERV immunity in squabbling committees. Even though it was due for a vote, NERV was already assured of at least two full vetoes.

The old men must have been furious at finding their so-called absolute power stymied by the necessities of a system built on international cooperation. They certainly carried enough clout to force such a measure through, but Gendo Ikari had something under his sleeve they failed to account for.

He had the Eva—the weapon itself, but also the technology and expertise to make it work. And like the nuclear bomb before it, possessing an Evangelion was a symbol of power and prestige, and all the things that made men sell their souls. SEELE believed that giving up the Evas would dilute their strength. Ikari believed it was not so; what really mattered was who else wanted it, and what they were willing to give up in exchange.

So the Special Protection Order remained in place for now, bought and paid for with the Evangelions.

Fuyutsuki and Ikari knew this detente would not last forever. In the end, the old men would get their way, whether by legal means or otherwise. Time was a luxury NERV could not afford, and it was running out.

"We know, and are glad for your understanding of the situation," Nakayima said. "I will relay your concerns to the Council. Unfortunately, without a new budget from the UN, there's very little we can do."

Ikari absorbed that information in thoughtful silence for a moment, then nodded. "Very well, then. For the time being, I have no further points to discuss. You are dismissed. Tell your superiors that NERV, too, looks forward to our mutual collaboration."

Nakayima saluted respectfully and turned on his heels.

Fuyutsuki waited for him to leave before stepping through the hidden side-door located in the far corner of the office and immediately noticed the contemptuous smirk that had appeared on Ikari's face. Ikari did not bother to explain and Fuyutsuki, who fully understood what had just happened, required no explanation.

He took the disk from his superior and carefully examined it. "I can't believe they would just let you have it."

"Ignorance is our ally," Ikari said, a dark curl entering his lips.

Glancing down at the tiny disk in his hand, Fuyutsuki tried to keep the sudden concern he felt hidden beneath the surface. The deep green material of the disk's surface reflected even the scarce light of the office, making it glint oddly like an eye.

"Do you disapprove?" Ikari asked him, his tone suggesting that he already knew the answer.

Fuyutsuki took a deep breath. Though he'd learned that it was acceptable to disagree with Ikari on a perfectly reasonable basis, he did not feel wholly comfortable doing so.

"I do not think we should taking this kind of risk," he said. "If you are going to use Rei, then I would much rather get it over with before the Japanese or SEELE have a chance to intervene. As we know they will."

"Rei is not ready," Ikari said. "The scenario did not account for us losing her again. Now that we have, we can no longer proceed as planned. Perhaps this was for the best. I was pained to lose her, but Rei had admittedly become too..."

"Attached?" Fuyutsuki finished for him.

Ikari ignored the interruption. "We made the mistake of allowing her the benefit of distance."

"And you think this will help?" Fuyutsuki held the disk up between his thumb and forefinger. "Knowing what we know it is capable of? It could be suicide."

"It will buy us the time we need. And if properly implemented it will fight itself. SEELE will know we have it, of course. Just as well. I believe that once we put the contents of the Emerald Tablet to use the UN will not dare move against us, regardless of what SEELE wants. Fear will become our shield once again."

"Or they will seek to destroy us all the more swiftly," Fuyutsuki retorted uneasily. "Quite a fortress of lies we have built already."

"They would not be able to justify such an action to each other, let alone the rest of the world," he said, his voice controlled and hard as stone. "Now there is another matter I must tend to. Have you made the necessary arrangements?"

"Yes, but I don't think she will cooperate. She's become quite fond of your son. And Dr. Akagi--"

"Ritsuko will do what I ask. And we should not worry about Major Katsuragi. She's had plenty of time to think about where her loyalties lie. She is still here; whatever her reasons, that means she is willing still to take orders and to see them through."

Fuyutsuki was not wholly convinced about the trustworthiness of either woman. Ritsuko Akagi had endangered everything they'd spent years preparing for no other reason than jealousy; Misato Katsuragi, on the other hand, seemed to have much more pragmatic motives. She was still here because she wanted to gain something—her sense of duty kept her loyal but only as long as she was still searching. Once she found what she thought she wanted to know, things would be very different.

Both women had made their relationships with NERV, and therefore with Ikari, deeply personal. And while Major Katsuragi still had the excuse of ignorance, Doctor Akagi was a willful and entirely knowledgeable partner. As she had already demonstrated, the damage she could do was nearly incalculable.

"Trust is not something that should be easily given these days." Fuyutsuki returned to his examination of the emerald disk, still not convinced that the Commander was not committing an act of gross oversight ... regarding his subordinates as well as many other things.

"No trust is given," Ikari said. "Only purpose."

* * *

Misato Katsuragi opened her eyes, struggling to keep her teeth from rattling from the cold. Gathering her jacket more securely around her shivering form, she looked down at laptop sitting on the floor next to her and read the screen.

"Searching," she said to herself, "dammit, still searching."

She fought the urge to tap on the keys, knowing it was likely to make things worse. For all she knew it might even trip the alarm systems she'd taken months to crack. She let out a sigh of impotence, her breath freezing around her, and curled tighter in her little corner, nestling against the wall for warmth. Hyuga had told her what this place was, a storage center.

Why it took liquid nitrogen to cool this rig was not a question that had seemed very relevant.

The large room was full of towers that rose from the floor like columns until they reached the ceiling, packed with what looked like servers or hard drives. Cables of different sizes ran from the towers to a central hub-like CPU, and though it was mostly pitch black, all the servers had tiny red diodes that pierced the darkness like faint stars that winked in and out of existence as the machines dutifully performed their tasks.

The electronic humming of technology had become almost pleasant; merely background noise to her thoughts. Technology powerful enough to protect life, or destroy it. Just like fifteen years ago.

And just like fifteen years ago, Misato had watched it happen all over again, and just like before it had cost her someone she loved.

"I am sorry too...Kaji-kun," Misato whispered. She gazed up at the blinking lights, wondering how long she could keep going like this before she met the same end as Kaji. It wouldn't be so bad; probably just a bullet or a knife or something. Maybe she wouldn't see it coming, and the next thing she'd feel would be Kaji, hugging her like he did in college to keep her warm at night. Shinji would understand, wouldn't he?

Shinji.

How would he understand? She was the only one he had left.

The high-pitched beeping of her cell phone broke through the hum, shattering her thoughts like glass. Misato reached into her jacket and allowed her fingers to rub gently against the butt of her gun before grabbing the small phone. "Katsuragi," she said, trying to keep her voice even.

"Major, you are requested back at Central Dogma." Hyuga's voice was flat and emotionless, completely unlike him. Something was wrong. "The Commander has asked for a meeting with the Central Control Personnel--"

"Do you know what it's about?"

"I can't tell you more now. Where are you? Should I send someone to pick you up?"

Misato glanced momentarily around her. Hyuga probably knew where she was, so his question could only mean that this connection was being monitored. "That's not necessary. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Have a car train ready for me."

"Use train 5," the young operator suggested before hanging up. Silently, Misato thanked him for playing along.

Misato put her cell phone away and stood up, rubbing some heat back into her frozen muscles. As she did, a disturbing question came to mind. Why was she still doing Gendo Ikari's bidding? He called and she went running to him as if she were his faithful dog.

The things she'd had to do following this man's orders would haunt her forever. At first it had been simple; she'd fooled herself into thinking it was for a noble cause.

But, in reality, destroying the Angels had made her feel better, had taken away some of the pain. The Angels had caused Second Impact—almost wiping out the human race—and wanted to cause a Third to finish what they had started. It was only fitting that they pay for what they'd done. Then she found out it had all been a lie, and the house of cards on which she built the justification for all the horrible things she'd done came crashing down.

The Angels had not brought the end of the world Misato had been happy in, Man had.

* * *

She was floating in something that was neither air nor water. Something warm and faintly familiar. A coppery taste and smell. The world was flooded by it, the way the ocean floods the deepest basins between continents, between ruined cities.

There was no sky or ground or any sense of reality; there was only the taste and smell. Her eyes were open but she couldn't see beyond the orange void. The taste she knew very well—LCL—but why hadn't she noticed the smell before?

And the she saw the lights. She let herself ascend from the nothingness, her body gliding gracefully through the liquid, her back arched as the warm embrace of this new womb surrendered to a cold chill.

Was this what it felt like to be born? Was this what it felt like to enter the cold, unforgiving world from a place of utter bliss and protection, to surrender to the awful reality of existence for the sake of living?

Was this what mother smelled like?

Rei Ayanami could not change what she was. That realization began to dawn within her as she broke the surface and was confronted by the white monster of gleaming flesh, nailed to a cross, whose face was hidden by the mask of steel with seven eyes. It stared at her with a heavy facade that was beyond all reality, pouring LCL onto the ocean from its severed midsection.

Something took hold of her arm. The LCL lapped at her sides and she felt herself being moved across the surface. It was cold in the dark cavern, but she didn't care.

Hypnotized, she stared at the creature on the cross, mute and pale. She sensed that it saw her and welcomed her as its own and changed. She saw herself nailed to the cross, her eyes burned brightly in the dark, her face white as the face of the creature, and she understood then that she was the creature.

It called to her in a voice that she recognized as her own, again and again. It loved her and cared for her the way no human being ever had. Then the voice changed, and Rei instantly recognized it again.

"Ayanami!"

There was an incredible roar, like the bellowing of an Eva Unit gone berserk, and then a bright white light covered everything. She had to protect him. He was all that mattered. She had to … was this what it meant to love?

And then there was blinding pain.

Rei Ayanami opened her eyes suddenly, and was immediately overcome by nausea. She sat in her bed, naked among twisted sheets of white linen, covered in sweat, and shook her head. For a short while she tried to fight the last remnants of the dream, and managed to push away the sickening sensations it stirred in her. She had felt them before, when inside the dummy system and when inside Eva-01.

Oblivious of her own nudity, she stood and walked to the nightstand, picking up the pair of glasses that her predecessor had kept there but that had not belonged to her.

"Ikari," she whispered softly. "Ikari."

She knew in her heart that it was not her whom he had befriended, and who he had cared for. And yet she dreamed about it all: dreamed of dying, of his touch and his words.

Rei looked at the clock; it was time to get ready for school.

* * *

The world did not end. Life, such as it was, went on. And somehow Shinji Ikari found the strength.

At first it was like living a waking nightmare. After killing Kaworu, the boy who had so swiftly become rooted in his heart, Shinji made it clear to Misato that he would never pilot Eva again. She had understood. There was no more need, she had said. There were no more Angels to fight. No more blood to be shed. But the reprieve came too late. If only things had been different, he would have had hope.

But he had become so broken that nothing had meaning. Nothing existed outside the gloom of his mind; he noticed nothing besides the hurt he felt. He lay on his bed and listened to music, caught between not wanting to live and not able to die. There was nothing more for him to do. For so long he just ate and slept and wasted away his time, and waited for the world to end. It never did.

And then one day he noticed Misato again. She had been there with him all along, giving him space when he needed it, offering comfort even when he didn't want it. Though her work kept her busy, she found time to leave messages on the answering machine for him to listen when she could not do it in person. She was not a companion in the strict sense of the word, she was just there.

It was at her insistence that he decided to go back to school.

Such a decision was a trial of his resolve to regain his lost childhood. School carried many of his happier memories, and some of the saddest.

Kensuke and Hikari had proven to be true friends, giving him support and comfort, helping him through what was the most awful time of his life. Toji was still in the hospital, but Shinji had it on good word that the other boy was making progress rehabilitating and, more importantly, did not hold a grudge against him. He didn't have to, because Shinji still blamed himself.

Like he blamed himself for Rei, and Asuka, and Kaworu. He always would.

There were still those days … days when he wondered why if it was even worth it to get out of bed in the morning, if it might not be better to just leave. But over time they had become fewer. Living became easier.

And now, three months after the death of the last Angel, as Shinji rode the Number 3 train to school, listening to the notes of Beethoven's Ode to Joy in his S-DAT as he often did, he could almost have passed for an average schoolboy.

The car was half-empty, warm, washed in the warm rays of the early-morning sun streaming through the large Plexiglas windows.

As the train rolled around the eastern bank of the third Ashino Lake, which now covered the city of Tokyo-3, Shinji looked out the window at the devastated landscape. Despite having suffered a crippling blow, there was still a city here. Someone had to work for NERV, someone else had to provide all the amenities of modern life. So while a chunk of the once-bustling metropolis was submerged into the ominously-labeled Exclusion Zone, what remained kept going.

Tokyo-3 had always been intended to be a battleground, people had always known the danger, but nothing like what had actually happened had been foreseen.

Shinji was surprised so much effort was being put into rebuilding.

The Reconstruction Council seemed to think it was possible to bring the city back altogether. A dam was being built to seal off the lake, and pumping stations were being set up to clear out the water. Within months he might actually be able to walk through the downtown which was currently covered by millions of tons of water. The suburbs were already up and running, as were outlying schools and transit systems. People could carry out normal life now.

But life wasn't normal for him. The Eva and the Angels had changed him as well those around him. The memories of those he'd met and hurt meant he could not be happy, regardless of how much he wanted to every waking moment. He would have given anything …

Shinji chanced a glance over his shoulder at the girl sitting across the narrow, sunny corridor.

Rei Ayanami did not acknowledge his presence, as he rarely acknowledged hers. She was reading a book, and hadn't said a word to him since he had entered the car. She had always been like that, but he had never felt as uncomfortable with his Rei as he now did with this…girl. She was a stranger. To him, to the world, to everything.

Rei Ayanami—the name had become a part of him. She had mystified him when they first met. Her silent character had earned her a reputation as frigid and distant, but after taking the time to know her, Shinji had found she was a warm, caring human being.

Was. Not anymore.

Because Rei Ayanami, the girl he'd taught how to smile, was dead. She had sacrificed herself to protect him.

This girl was someone else. She might look and act like the girl he used to know, but she wasn't. She wasn't the Rei Ayanami he had cared about, just a similar body holding a different heart, a product of bioengineering, like his Eva, a shell, a thing—no, that wasn't fair.

Shinji felt a pang of regret at that thought.

Although he had seen the tank and the spare bodies with horror, this new Rei didn't deserve to be thought of as any less human than the one he had known. Doing so made him just as cold hardhearted father as his father. Rei hadn't asked for this, she was an innocent. She didn't deserve his scorn simply because she was created.

As she sat there, breathing, living, thinking, feeling, she was as human as he was. But while he knew this, he still found that he could not approach her. That he had to alienate her exactly because of who and what she was. It was not fair, but that was how it was.

Suddenly, her soft voice, barely audible over the hum of the train and his S-DAT, caught his attention. "If I bother you, I can move to the next car."

Shinji lowered his head. "No, please," he said, pulling out his earphones, his eyes on the floor. "It's just still a little weird for me, you know."

Rei lifted her gaze from the book she had been reading. Her eyes were red, greatly contrasting the sky-blue color of her short, shaggy hair. "Why?"

It was the first they talked about this. In hindsight, Shinji realized that he had always been afraid of what he would say. He wanted very much not to have recall those memories. That was why he avoided her for so long. And because just looking at her made him hurt.

"I did not mean to upset you." Rei turned away and began to stand. "I will let you be."

"No, I ..." Shinji fought the knot in his throat. "It's because you—because of what happened. You know, you … do you remember?"

"I remember pain," she said softly.

Shinji turned, able to have a good look at her for the first time in ages. Her skin was a clear white, as if she'd wrapped herself in whiffs of cloud, though some would describe her as ghostly. A petite frame hid under the folds of the blue jumper and white shirt that made up her school uniform, which appeared to be the only piece of clothing she owned.

The plain looking outfit fit her rather loosely—the shirt was definitely a size too big—and was wrinkled. Rei had never cared for such things. At least, _she_ never had. But that was not the girl sitting in front of him. And it was wrong to think of her that way.

After months of willful neglect, Shinji realized there was something he needed to say. "Ayanami, I'm sorry."

Rei seemed surprised. "For what?"

"I haven't been very nice to you lately," he murmured sullenly. "I've treated you like … like a stranger. It was just hard to see you around after … after you died. After she died, sorry."

He hesitated, a warm rush of shame coloring his cheeks. "I keep thinking you are her. I just miss her so much. But it wasn't fair of me to cut you off like that—I think a part of me wished she hadn't done what she did, but if she hadn't that Angel would have killed me."

"She died to protect you," Rei said, her face remaining as tranquil as always; had it been anyone else Shinji would have taken it badly and withdrawn. "But should you want to blame me—"

Shinji shook his head, now having to fight back tears. "Don't say that."

"Self-destructing Unit-00 was her choice. She did not seek advice or permission. It was her choice in the end, made with her own free will, her own mind. It was the only true decision in her life made from the heart. She did not regret it."

She had not meant her words to be hurtful, he knew. There was nothing in the way she spoke to indicate otherwise. And yet he hurt because of the awful memories the words recalled.

"I shouldn't have pushed you away," Shinji said. "Just because you weren't her. I shouldn't have let you be alone. You were always so kind to me. And when you needed me I just couldn't do the same for you."

"I was never kind to you. But given a chance I think I would be. Like she was."

Shinji couldn't look her in the eyes as he said that, instead focusing on her alabaster hands.

"Do you understand, then?" Rei said. "There is nothing to be sorry about. She chose to die, the same way Kaworu Nagisa chose to die."

Hearing the name said out loud was like a punch to the gut. "I don't want to talk about that."

"I have tried crying for him." For the first time, Rei let her gaze drop. "But I can not. There is too much about his loss that does not make sense to me. Does that mean I'm not human?"

The train made a left turn, peeling way from the edge of the lake, forcing those passengers who were standing to hold more tightly to the hand loops hanging from overhead rails to keep from stumbling. They were plunged into darkness as the train entered a tunnel. The running lights and the lights wired to the tunnel walls cast weird elongated shadows across the car; the noise of the air and the track rushing past them increased into a thunderous roar.

"I have no emotions," Rei added, her red eyes eerie in the dark. "Is that why I can not cry for him?"

Shinji still did not want to talk about Kaworu, so he was grateful Rei seemed to have changed the subject back to herself. "You must have emotions."

"Is that what makes you human, your emotions?"

The tunnel fell away and they were back into sunlight. Having left the flooded remnants of Tokyo-3 behind, a new more civilized world stretched around them. Once little more than a rest stop for weary travelers, these sleepy suburbs had grown into a bustling town as one of the most important destinations of the honeycomb that was the mass transit system. This had made it the ideal place to relocate their demolished school.

"I don't know" Shinji said vaguely, wishing this interminable ride would just end already. It had never taken this long to get to school before.

"So, if I have no emotions…I am not human?"

Shinji let the question hang in the air.

"Ikari?" Rei called to him, her voice slightly louder. "Am I not human?" she asked again, sounding concerned.

"You are human," Shinji said. "You have to be."

"The Rei Ayanami you knew before was the second one, was she not human?"

Shinji shook his head; he didn't want to answer, and yet the words began coming out of him. "She was very much like you," he said "I guess you and her are the same and not the same. I can't really explain it. But being human is more than what you are physically; it's who you are. And she was human enough for me. Like Kaworu."

Rei twisted halfway away from him, her eyes now gazing into the empty space as if she could see something there.

"But did he not have to die?" she asked, but to Shinji it sounded like a statement, not a question. "Because he was not human?"

Shinji did not answer. There was no point in replying to such a question. Rei knew what had happened, and how painful it must be for him to talk about it. He would not be going there again.

"He told me I was like him," Rei added. "I do not think I understand."

The train slowed with the screeching noise of brakes. Within another moment, it came to a complete stop on the platform and the doors opened.

Gathering his school bag around his shoulder, Shinji stepped off in silence. Rei followed a few paces behind. The crowd was mostly students walking to and from, chatting with friends and acquaintances, asking each other if they'd done their homework then immediately asking if they could copy said homework.

It was short a walk from the train platform to the school, which was a single large rectangular building with an open courtyard and a gym that held a basketball and volleyball court—unlike their old school, there was no swimming pool, much to the boys chagrin.

As he entered the classroom, several girls looked in his direction, giggling and quickly turned away, blushing. He recognized Miho Ishizawa, a tall girl with long, black hair at the center of the group. In Asuka's absence, she seemed to have picked up the idol's baton.

At first Shinji had been annoyed by this sort of behavior—and more than a little embarrassed—until Hikari had explained. It was because of his eyes, she had said, because of how the pale blue always made him look sad and in turn made the girls want to console him, and because they considered him cute.

Given that neither Rei nor Asuka had ever said much about how he looked, Shinji had always assumed he was not much to look at—in fact that was the exact phrase Asuka had used when she first met him. He'd been totally wrong, or so Hikari informed him. His dark brown hair and slender build was more than enough to guarantee him the girls' attention.

Shinji didn't really care for this, however. There had only been two girls whose opinions of him had mattered: one was dead, and the other might as well be.

He took his seat next to Kensuke, who was playing with a scale model of the American B-2 Stealth Bomber. "You lucky dog. I wished they'd look at me like that. Maybe you should introduce me."

"Ask Hikari," Shinji nodded towards the freckled Class Representative handing out sheets of paper to various interested-looking students, getting a playful wave in return. "I don't even know most of their names."

"Well, Miho certainly thinks very highly of you."

Shinji just shrugged.

"Man, I know having lived with Miss Popular must make these girls seem ordinary, but not even you can be this jaded." Kensuke pressed his lips into a pout. "You must have really been spoiled rotten."

* * *

"There is just no way for the diploid cells to divide any faster and not risk a complete breakdown of the cellular wall," Maya Ibuki told the little pink pillow shaped like a bunny. "We are already beyond anything predicted by the Hayflick scale. This sort of thing has never been tried before—I mean we can study some damn lizard, but the Eva is a far more complex organism. You don't happen to have a degree in macromolecular biology, right, Mrs. Bunny?"

"Maya, I think you're loosing your mind," Shigeru Aoba, the self-appointed rock star of the bridge crew said, pausing in his strumming of the imaginary guitar he was holding to look a her with concern. "Has the Commander explained why the big rush? We haven't been on Level One Alert for months. Unit-01 and Unit-02 are still in stasis. And I suppose, technically, they don't have pilots."

"I'm sure there's a good reason." Maya stuffed the bunny between her sore back and the chair. "We just don't know what it is."

"Seems pretty fishy if you ask me," that from Makoto Hyuga, who was leaning against his console, holding a cup of coffee. "That boy was the last Angel, that's what they said before. By the way, Maya, shouldn't you be working on Unit-00?"

Maya sighed. "I'm on break. I don't have anywhere else to be."

Hyuga and Aoba looked mournfully at each other. "Don't you want to get some food? Some sleep?" said Hyuga, concerned.

"The food makes me sick, and I've got too much coffee in me to sleep."

Being NERV's de-facto Chief Scientist was not what she had expected, Maya had already admitted to herself. She could not remember the last time she had left the Geo-Front for her apartment. Maya had been decidedly excited when Commander Ikari had presented her with the opportunity to reconstruct Unit-00.

The project was codenamed Lazarus and it was the first project which would be completely under her control, a tremendous challenge to test the skills she'd learned under the brilliant Dr. Ritsuko Akagi. Cellular mitosis and a host of other procedures had now regenerated almost 25 percent of the vaporized Evangelion, but Commander Ikari was still expressing his displeasure at the lack of progress.

"Maya, I don't think that's very healthy," Aoba said.

Maya truly appreciated their concern. The bond with her fellow operator was one they had forged over dozens of life-threatening situations, and over great tragedy. That's why she felt comfortable coming to them to vent. "Yeah, I know. The schedule is tight enough as it is so it's not like I can really get any time off though."

"If you need more help, feel free to take Haruna over there." Aoba flicked a thumb at a dark haired female operator further down the bridge.

"I don't know anything about biology," Haruna called out, then her voice turned sarcastically sweet, "but thanks for volunteering me for extra work, dipshit."

Hyuga laughed, slapping Aoba lightheartedly on the back. "And she loves you, you say?"

Haruna's wit was totally lost on Maya. "It's not a personnel issue. Half the payroll could volunteer and it wouldn't do any good. I'm the only one with the expertise—other than Doctor Akagi, I mean."

"That is very true."

Doctor Akagi's voice.

Maya was on her feet before the faux-blonde doctor, the genius behind NERV, could come to a stop in front of the small group of operators, her look of utter astonishment shared by everyone.

It fell to Hyuga to ask the obvious. "D-Doctor Akagi? What are you …"

"There's too much that needs doing," Ritsuko Akagi said, seeming oblivious to the fact that every eye in bridge was focused intently on her. "So much, in point of fact, that my services are required once again. As Maya said, there isn't anyone else." She turned to Hyuga. "I'm going to need some equipment. Borrow what you can, take what you can't."

Maya felt a cold knot form in her stomach. "Ma'am, what about Lazarus?"

"Lazarus is your responsibility. If you wish I can provide you with some technical advice, but I've got other things to keep me busy at the moment. I know you've been having problems with rate of mitosis—I read the reports," she added at Maya's incredulous look. "I'll see what can be done to speed things up a bit. But for now the Dummy is my main priority."

"The Dummy?" all three operators said at once.

"It's all about combat effectiveness and redundancy," Ritsuko said shortly. "Hyuga, I can set everything up myself. I just need the equipment. Maya, you should go back to Unit-00's cage. I'll be there shortly."

Maya didn't know what to say. She could hardly believe it. Ritsuko was truly a godsend. Suddenly, she wanted to throw her arms around her boss in a hug. "Ma'am, I don't …"

"Do you want the help or not?" Ritsuko said, her voice cold and busyness-like. "I do not intend to offer twice."

Eagerly, Maya nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. Thank you."

* * *

The sun had turned the sky a furious orange by the time Shinji got home from school. The elevator was slow and smooth. Whoever did maintenance on it apparently didn't care that very few people used it and still did a good of keeping it up. He swiped his key on the lock automatically.

The first time he had crossed this door he'd hesitated. He'd never had a home—yes, he'd lived with relatives but it was hardly home—and here was this kind stranger, a pretty dark-haired woman, offering her home to him; he couldn't refuse but that didn't mean he couldn't have doubts about sharing such intimacy with someone he hardly knew.

Shinji removed his shoes at the entrance, throwing down his book bag next to them.

The apartment's layout was simple enough, a kitchen just inside the door with an adjacent bathroom, a large living room which led immediately to the master bedroom and the terrace, and down a short corridor to the second bedroom and a closet.

When he'd first moved in he'd taken the smaller room, but when Asuka had arrived he'd been moved to the closet across the hall.

Shinji hadn't complained. He didn't own that much stuff—most of it fit in a single box which Asuka had dumped in his new 'room.' She, on the other hand, owned piles and needed the space more than he did. He could have moved back, certainly; Asuka had been in the hospital for ages and was not likely to return.

He tried not think of her. What happened to her …

"I'm home, Misato," Shinji called as he entered the kitchen, not expecting her to be there.

The untidy wooden table and chairs made navigating the cramped space tricky. As he came around, Shinji frowned at the sight of a girl's school uniform neatly hanging from the back of one of the chairs.

Carefully, he picked up the thin bit of red ribbon the girls wore tied around the collars of their shirts from where it had been set and examined it.

Why was this here? Had Misato decided to clear Asuka's stuff? No. The uniform was clean, freshly pressed. Not the sort of thing that would have been hanging in a closet gathering dust for months.

Then why?

"I wanted to tell you."

Shinji looked up and saw Misato standing under the doorway leading to the rest of the apartment. Her dark eyes looked him over then dropped to the uniform. She seemed tired; her expression careworn. "Asuka is being released from the hospital in a few days."

"Really?" Shinji should have been happy for her, but there was to much pain and guilt and regret attached to his memories of her. And, despite everything, there was also a great deal of concern. "Is she cured?" he asked. "Is she doing okay?"

"She's ... better." Misato did not look at him. "I thought maybe you would like to come with me to the hospital when I pick her up."

Shinji hesitated. The prospect of seeing Asuka again suddenly seemed daunting. But what could he do? She was someone important to him. Someone whose life he was partially responsible for ruining.

"I know Asuka would appreciated it."

He was not convinced, but felt he could do nothing else. "I … yeah, okay."

Although it was clearly what she wanted, his answer did not lighten Misato's mood. Her strangely evasive gaze finally got his attention. Whenever they got a chance to talk she always seemed happy to see him, even if she wasn't feeling particularly upbeat; she always made an effort so the few moments they spent together were enjoyable.

She would at least look at him.

"Misato?" Shinji murmured. "Is there something wrong? With Asuka?"

Misato sighed, leaning heavily against the door frame. "Not with Asuka. It's ... " Her face became hard, determined, and she took a deep breath. "There's no easy way for me to say this so I'll just say it: I need you to pilot Eva again."

Shinji let the ribbon slip from his hand.

Misato quickly added, "I know I promised you wouldn't have to, but the Commander thinks there are more Angels on the way so we have to be ready."

"But you promised." Anger came suddenly over him, strong and unwelcome. It was like a burning wave that washed over him, a rush of emotion that swallowed everything in its path. "You promised!"

Misato shook her head. "I know I did, Shinji. Believe me. If there were anything else I could do--"

"You promised!"

"I know. I'm sorry." Misato's voice was soft. "I'm sorry."

"That's not good enough!" The words were out almost as soon as Shinji had thought them. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a whisper of restraint, that part of him that felt he owed Misato the chance to explain. He ignored it. "Every time I get in that thing someone gets hurt! Toji. Rei. Asuka. And … Kaworu."

"I know."

"Every time! How can you ask me to go back? Don't you understand what it feels like? Don't you? Being sorry is not good enough! That doesn't make it better. It doesn't take the pain away. You are not the one that has to deal with it!"

"Shinji, I've tried to understand—I really have. But your father, this is his order."

"He can't make me!" Shinji bellowed. "And neither can you. I don't care if you have orders. You're a monster just like my father!"

As that last accusation left his lips he knew he had just crossed a line in the sand. It was a horrible thing to say, especially to someone who moments before he had been convinced cared about him.

Her widening eyes shimmered on the verge of tears and she was taken aback. In his anger he was glad that he could hurt her so deeply merely with words.

"You are right," Misato tried to keep her voice from quivering, succeeding only just barely, "I can't make you. But you are a man. And some times men have to do things they don't like because they are the right things, because people depend on them. Your choices affect more than just you. Your words—" she stopped and for a moment seemed unable to gather her thoughts "—Shinji, I don't want to hurt you. I'm not …"

But Shinji was not listening anymore. "You are just like my father!"

That was the end and Misato recognized it. Nothing she could say would change his mind and she knew it. No matter how she tried to justify her breaking her promise, he would not accept it. He would not pilot Eva again. Visibly deflated, she just nodded and swallowed further argument.

Shinji didn't watch her retreat, instead picking the little ribbon off the floor and dropping, exhausted and betrayed, on the nearest chair, laying his head into his hands.

* * *

Misato descended the last few rungs of the ladder onto the deck were Ritsuko was setting up her diving gear, her boots hitting the metal platform with an empty echo. "So it's true then?"

Ritsuko looked up from her work with one of the regulators on the air tanks as her friend adjusted her hardhat, walking towards her. "I'm only surprised it took him so long," she said with a bitter grin. "Never let a valuable resource go to waste."

Typical, Misato thought.

After destroying the Dummy System, Ritsuko had been put into detention more than three months ago; she was simply too dangerous, and the way it was done had not allowed anyone to intervene. Misato had been there when the dummy was destroyed, standing next to Shinji as the spare Rei bodies began to disintegrate in front of them. Ritsuko seemed to despise them, asserting that they were just empty shells.

It was one of the most troubling things Misato had ever seen, and that said something since she had actually seen Second Impact happen.

"Can I hold your coat or something?" Misato asked, sitting on the edge of the deck, letting her legs dangle over the side.

She looked into the LCL filling most of the deep compartment beneath her feet and could clearly see the emaciated shape of Unit-00. It was just a torso, one arm, and a head, surrounded by all kinds and gauges of cables and piping tangled in a rather grotesque morass. Without its armor, it looked like a skeleton, a humanoid thing seemingly half-exhumed. "Lovely, isn't it?" she commented sarcastically.

"Who is to say Man doesn't look just as abhorrent to God," Ritsuko replied.

"God created Man in his image. To find Man abhorrent, God would to have to abhor himself."

"And Man created Eva in his." Ritsuko straightened up, removing her lab coat; she was wearing a dark, one-piece swimsuit underneath. Misato took her coat off the floor and draped it over her lap.

"Thank you," Ritsuko said.

"No problem. I like feeling useful. What are you doing down here, anyway?"

"Taking samples. Unit-00's body is much too frail to be exposed to the air at this stage—the nutrients and oxidizers in the LCL help protect it—so this is the only way to get accurate samples." Ritsuko checked her diving watch. "But if I may ask you a question, have you talked to Shinji?"

Misato sighed heavily. "Yeah."

"I take it didn't go well."

Misato didn't respond. She had hoped avoiding having to broach the subject in any detail. Ritsuko would have to be told that Shinji had refused to pilot Unit-01, and Misato had already typed up a report. But written words were a lot less personal than talking about it. And although she was still hurting from Shinji's anger-filled words, in a deeper level she was certain she deserved it. That made the hurt even harder to get rid of.

"Misato?" Ritsuko prompted.

"What was I supposed to say?" she muttered. "That he had to do it because it's his duty? I did. I'm not even sure I believe that. I'm not even sure it's the truth anymore. Was I supposed to lie to him?"

"You should have said what was necessary to achieve the desired results."

Misato felt anger. "Like he's some kind of damned machine? Like he doesn't have feelings? I can't. Human beings don't work like that, Ritsuko. I know that doesn't make sense for someone like you, but you can't just justify making him suffer like that. He has a right to be happy."

"Didn't we also have that right? But life doesn't work out that way. We must each do what is required of us, because if nobody did, we'd still be living in caves, afraid of fire. Sacrifice is a part of life." Ritsuko sat next to Misato and began strapping the heavy aluminum tank to her back.

"You tell Shinji that next time, okay?"

Ritsuko fitted the scuba mask across her forehead. "What about Asuka?"

"Still in the hospital. Quite frankly I don't know how she's supposed to pilot Eva in her condition. Have you caught up with her dossier?"

Ritsuko nodded. "I have. She'll be fine."

"She was found naked in a bathtub full of filth, an inch away from suicide. The doctor said she'd been starving herself and they had to put her under to keep her from hurting herself. Doesn't sound like someone you'd want operating a weapon of mass destruction."

"Asuka would not commit suicide, that's not who she is. Had she wanted to, there are much easier and efficient ways to do it. No. Asuka wanted to suffer, to punish herself for her failure. She stopped caring about her life; that is not the same as wanting to die."

"If you say so," Misato said miserably. "My point remains. How is she supposed to pilot in her condition?"

"We can figure something out. Eva is built on dozens of very complicated systems. All it takes is a tweak to a tiny a part of one of those systems to drastically change the final product. You just leave it me."

Misato frowned. "Meanwhile, what do I tell Asuka?"

"Tell her what you know she wants to hear." Ritsuko lowered the scuba mask over her eyes. "Listen, Misato, you can't keep making everything so personal. Detach yourself a little. Maybe you'll find that it isn't such a bad thing."

That wasn't likely to happen any time soon, and both she and Ritsuko knew it.

"I'll hold on to your coat." She patted Ritsuko on the shoulder. Recognizing a lost battle when she saw one, Ritsuko placed the breathing regulator in her mouth, held the mask firmly in place, and plunged backward into the LCL with a loud splash.

* * *

Evangelion Unit-01 was a marvel of engineering.

Even with his scientific background Fuyutsuki had always had trouble grasping exactly just how significant the creation of such a thing was. The first five units in the series, 00 to 04, were unique. Though designed and built along a common structure, and essentially based on the same being, all of them had their own unique qualities; all of them seemed to reflect the personalities and minds of their pilots in a remarkable way.

Considering the facts behind their armored exteriors it was perhaps fitting.

But Unit-01 stood alone among them. It—no, _she_ was special. Yui Ikari had seen to that.

Fuyutsuki sighed at the memory, letting all his attention focus the huge head above him. Unit-01 had been pulled out of stasis and he was standing on a skywalk about halfway up her chest. She was lean and massive, covered head-to-foot in thick purple armor; her head a monstrous thing, a pronounced jaw below a single horn located where the nose would be, and triangular eyes like a demon's.

Originally she had been intended as the test unit, but necessity had dictated that she become the first actual combat unit—the first to ever engage and destroy and Angel. With a neophyte pilot lacking any training no less.

Things hadn't gone quite as planned. Unit-01 hadn't been supposed to ingest an S2 engine; Rei hadn't been supposed to die; Ikari hadn't been supposed to turn on his masters so overtly. Still, what was done was done. The schedule had to be delayed. Fuyutsuki was sure Yui would understand. She always had. And they had to be certain.

High above him, Unit-01's stasis entry-plug had been removed by crane, replaced with a new dark plug that was now sticking out of the jack at the base of the skull. There was a ring of light at the end of the plug around which diagnosis cables had been coiled and branched off like tension cables supporting a structure against the wind. It wouldn't be long before they were ready.

Fuyutsuki put his thoughts aside and turned to his aid. "And Doctor Akagi?"

The pretty technician blinked in surprise, seeming caught by been addressed so directly; Fuyutsuki thought her awkwardness endearing. "She's, um, with Unit-00. Taking samples, I believe. She left orders to prepare the diagnosis plug and proceed through to acceptable feedback thresholds."

"Very well." Fuyutsuki nodded, again looking up at Unit-01.

Patience, he urged silently. They would get there together—or would be destroyed together.

* * *

Shinji had done as Misato asked and tagged along to pick Asuka up at the hospital.

The ride in her car was very awkward; he was still angry and hadn't said a word to her in several days, despite her effort to engage him in small talk, and was now intent on keeping his eyes firmly on the window as they descended through one of the car trains that provided vehicle access to and from the Geo-Front and the surface.

The Geo-Front was a massive underground structure. Shinji knew little about it except that it was basically a dome that housed all of NERV's operations underneath the city of Tokyo-3. Central Dogma itself was located on a pyramid-like main building on the center of the huge cavern, surrounded by a forest and an artificial lake. The trains and other cargo elevators spiraled down the sides of the dome, providing easy access to the surface bellow where a bridge connected traffic to Central Dogma's parking areas.

But as incredible as this place was, there was always the reminder that until recently it had been a war zone. And there are always casualties in war.

They parked and wordlessly moved into the structure, taking several elevators to reach the isolated Cranial Nerve Ward, which was reserved only for the worse of injuries. NERV's medical facilities were possibly Shinji's least favorite place in the world. And he had only spent short periods there.

Nothing as long as Asuka.

They found her standing on a hallway inside the ward, a nurse by her side, looking out of a brightly lit window that gave her a view of the gardens. She wore a white gown and slippers.

Despite the months of internment, Asuka was still the exotic beauty Shinji remembered. She was a little thin, and her skin—once a healthy light tan—seemed paler than normal from lack of sunlight.

Her tousled golden-red mane fell unrestrained down her to mid-back and spilled over her shoulders in two long streaks, framing a young, very pretty face that distinctly reflected the German side of her mixed parentage. Her eyes were a brilliant sapphire blue, set above high cheeks that had somehow escaped freckles; her slender teenaged body, and the manner in which she liked to show it off, had often left him unable to help himself.

In the confined space of Misato's apartment, being so intimately close to her, it had been easy to turn her into a sexual object as she lounged around in little more than her underwear—lots of creamy flesh exposed, shorts ridding up occasionally to reveal more than was intended. Even the guilt and disgust that usually came afterward was not much of a deterrent in the heat of the moment.

Indeed, those two emotions seemed to have come to define everything he felt about Asuka, and more than just in a physical sense.

From the moment she introduced herself to their class she'd become a celebrity, and her haughty personality always seemed to enjoy the attention. To Shinji she had seemed bright and happy in a way he could only envy.

She had fooled him completely.

Shinji had been there when the Angel unraveled her mind, and discovered in horror that beneath the Asuka he knew hid a painful tangle of abandoned emotions. Sadly, nobody could go through what she had without changing for the worse. Being alone and forgotten in the hospital couldn't have helped either. His failure to console her, or even offer the slightest bit of comfort, was just as bad.

The sight of her made Shinji heartsick. He wanted so bad to say how sorry he was, despite knowing fully it wouldn't do her any good, but the words stuck in his throat and would not come out. He shouldn't be here, shouldn't be looking at her or try to talk with her like nothing had happened.

As roommates and fellow Eva pilots, they had constantly been at odds with each other—their characters being so different—and yet, Shinji didn't think for a moment Asuka deserved what happened to her. He certainly had never wanted to see her be hurt, and he had not wanted to abandon her, either.

But he had; it had been the easier thing to do.

Thankfully for him, Misato didn't seem to want him to say anything. She placed a hand on his shoulder, indicating that he should wait while she went closer, very cautiously. "Hi, Asuka. How are you feeling?"

The response from the convalescing redhead was short and loaded with bitterness. "What do you want?"

"To bring you home," Misato said in a soft, motherly tone. "Unit-02 needs a pilot."

"Didn't you hear?" Asuka scoffed. "I can't pilot it anymore."

She turned her head to Misato but looked past her, to where Shinji was standing, and fixed him with a sour glare, her eyes bristling with barely-controlled anger. "Besides, why would you need me? You've got the invincible Shinji over there—the Great Third Child! Why would you need a worthless little girl like me?"

"I wouldn't be here if I thought you were worthless," Misato said, sounding like she really meant it.

Asuka rounded on her. "My synch-ratio is zero! ZERO! Don't you understand? I can't pilot Eva anymore!"

"We think there might be a way," Misato explained calmly. "Ritsuko said she was working on something."

"_What?_" Asuka's brow came up in genuine surprise. "Are you serious?"

Misato gave her a little smile. "I'm not up the details yet, but we're working on it. The main thing is, I want you to come home. This place is not good for you."

Asuka looked away, shoulders sagging, and Shinji thought he could sense something else besides the simmering anger. "Even if it works—if I can pilot again—what makes you think I'd want to go back?" Where there had been only anger and bitterness in her voice before, now she sounded dejected. "I was never happy there."

"It's not so bad," Misato said. "We had new carpets put in. And Pen-Pen is still with Hikari, so the fish smell is gone."

Asuka laughed shortly. Not a real laugh.

"Look, you really don't expect me to believe you want to stay here. I've got everything ready for you—well, everything is pretty much how you left it—and Hikari is positively giddy to see you again. She can't wait to go shopping with you. You belong out there, with your friends and the people who care about you, Asuka, not in here. It's fine if you don't want to feel pitied, but do it for yourself, okay? I—we—" Misato looked at Shinji "—want something better for you."

Asuka scanned every line in Misato's face, as if looking for an excuse, and when she found none, turned her gaze to Shinji. "And what do you have to say about all this?"

Shinji could not hold her gaze and dropped his eyes, feeling shamed. His mind became instantly blank. "Asuka ... I ... I ... "

Asuka made a noise of exasperation. "Ach, still as dimwitted as ever."

"Of course Shinji wants you to come home too." Misato slipped off the backpack she'd been carrying and pressed it into Asuka's arms. "I brought you some clothes. Unless you plan to go around like that. I don't know. Maybe you want to start a trend."

Looking at her again, Asuka hesitated for a moment. Then, her mind apparently made up, she took the offered backpack.

As she went to change, Misato turned to the nurse, asking her to help get the rest of her patient's things. The nurse nodded and followed Asuka down the corridor, leaving Shinji and Misato alone once again. It was only a short wait: minutes later the three of them had climbed onto Misato's car and were headed back to the surface.

Misato and Asuka sat up front; Shinji was in the back, on the driver side. Just once he caught the redhead's blue eyes in the rear view mirror.

After that, for the rest of the trip, all he could do was stare out of the window, feeling uncomfortable, as the scenery passed by in silence. Even Misato was quiet; it was as thought the three of them were completely strangers, having nothing to say to one another despite the long separation.

The Third Child would like to think he was delegated to cook because he was good at it. But in reality he simply started making dinner as soon as they got home and no one made an effort to stop him. It was probably the best—and only—thing he could for Asuka now.

Taking the cooking upon himself would keep Misato from doing it, and would spare Asuka from eating lukewarm microwaved spew on her first night home. Shinji thought she deserved better; their guardian's food ranked almost as high as the hospital's on the list of things nobody would ever want to eat.

As soon as they got home, Shinji began gathering some pots and other assorted utensils he needed while Misato and Asuka went their separate ways; he heard Misato going into her room, emerging later to turn on the TV, having changed into a skimpy top and her favorite pair of cut-off jean shorts.

The water for the rice was just boiling when Asuka slipped into the kitchen, holding a bundle of clean clothes in her hands. Facing the stove, he caught only a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye as she walked around the far end of the table, and into the bathroom.

As the shower started running it was like a signal and he felt his body relaxing, without having become aware that it had tensed.

It wasn't like they ever got along great, but at least they had been able to talk to each other about some things, mostly school and Eva related stuff, and very rarely personal things. Shinji guessed it was only normal if they couldn't do that anymore. Not after everything that had happened.

Sighing dishearteningly, he tried to push those thoughts out of his mind and focus on preparing the food.

His timing was perfect. As soon as Shinji had set down the plates full of rice, meat and vegetables on the low table that was really the only piece of furniture in Misato's living room, Asuka emerged from the bathroom. She was still slightly damp, wearing her usual sleeveless top tucked into high-cut gym bloomers that made her long shapely legs seem even longer—pretty standard housewear for Asuka.

That last observation surprised him a little. He may have gotten used to it over time, but she was still showing a lot of skin.

Sitting around different sides of the table, the three of them began picking at their food with chopsticks. It was a gloomy atmosphere, though such a thing was to be expected. Shinji was thankful that none of them seemed interested in the others despite this being their first meal together in months. It made not saying anything less of a chore.

Misato attempted to break the silence by complemented him on the cooking after a few bites, and seeing that he was not willing to talk, turned her efforts to Asuka while chewing on a mouthful of rice.

"Mm, Asuka," she said. "Ritsuko wanted me to tell you she wants to see you tomorrow. She needs to do a physical to determine your current condition."

"A physical?" Unlike Misato, Asuka had the manners to swallow before replying. She lifted her eyes from her plate, where she'd been pushing a piece of meat around with her chopsticks. "Haven't I been poked and prodded enough already?"

"It'll help to figure out how far to push it during synch testing."

"Aren't you going to activate Unit-02?" Asuka said mournfully.

"Sure." Misato ate another mouthful. "Eventually. Ritsuko says we need to establish your baseline first. For once, I think I agree. It's not a good idea to try to activate your Eva without knowing, well, if you can take it. You've been away for a while. It's bound to take a toll."

"You don't think I can, do you?" Asuka frowned, returning her attention to the food.

"Like I said, I wouldn't have bothered with you if I thought that, would I?" Misato said. "Of course I think you can do it. I've always had faith in you. So does everyone else."

"Then why not activate it?" Asuka replied hotly, frowning as her voice rose. "Otherwise you are just wasting time."

"That's not it." Misato looked concerned. "I'm just looking after you, that's all."

Whether Asuka believed this or not was uncertain. She bit her lower lip to keep from replying.

Misato was getting far too good at doing this, Shinji thought bitterly. At sounding like she truly cared,. She might claim to be looking after them all she wanted, but it was just a self-serving, manipulative act. She had already betrayed him more hurtfully that he had ever thought her capable of, and now she was betraying Asuka as well.

As he silently lifted morsels from his plate to his mouth, Shinji pretended that he wasn't looking at Asuka but sneaked glances at her between bites.

She clearly wanted to pilot Eva and, since she didn't have the same kind of baggage as he did, it might even make her happy. He would like that. Anything to assure him that there was still hope for her.

He was holding up some rice with his chopsticks when Asuka shifted her posture, adjusting her legs more comfortably under her. Without intending to, he caught her eyes in his—for a split second two pairs of blue irises, his pale and hers bright, met before turning away from each other.

Shinji swallowed hard, nervously, almost chocking. For the rest of the meal he did not dare lift his gaze again.

When she was satisfied, Misato leaned back, rubbing her stomach lazily. "That's what I'm talking about. Oh, I've got something for you, Asuka."

The dark-haired Major got up and disappeared into the kitchen, emerging seconds later holding a small box with a piece of paper attached to the top on which a welcome home message was written.

"Here." Misato handed the box to Asuka and sat down next to her, smiling excitedly. "Thought you might like to have these back. You'll need them now that you are a pilot again."

Asuka set down her chopsticks, opened the box, and stared mutely at its contents—her pointy, bright red neural connectors. They were essential equipment in linking the pilot and the Eva into one being, but she had constantly used them as ordinary hair clips, unmistakable symbols of her status for everyone to see.

The redheaded girl managed a strained smile, picking up the connectors and holding them hesitantly in her hands.

Shinji noticed one of her writs was swollen and still needle-marked; she'd only recently been taken off the I.V.

Misato apparently was put-off by Asuka's hesitation, clearly having thought she would be thrilled to have such meaningful items back. "Let me …" she scooted closer, reaching to take the neural connectors and clip them on.

"Don't touch me." Asuka shrunk away.

Without further explanation, she sprang to her feet and headed for her bedroom, disappearing around the corner of the short corridor that led to her and Shinji's rooms.

The strange feeling Shinji had felt when he first saw her in the hospital deepened into a kind of dullness in his chest as he watched her go. He was sorry for her, but was that it? Was it guilt he felt, or everything thrown together and stirred until it was impossible to tell what was what?

This felt different somehow, stronger, and completely beyond his limited comprehension. If only he could tell Asuka maybe they could figure it out and it would stop bothering him. More likely she would scream at him and call him stupid for not knowing what his own feelings were.

Maybe he really was.

Misato noticed the concerned look on his face. "She'll get over it. Just give her time," she said. "It's always hard getting yourself back together after a fall. And the way she fell—It wouldn't be easy for anyone."

Shinji said nothing; he was still staring after Asuka.

"I forgot," Misato added after a short silence. "You're still not talking to me."

* * *

The speaker's dais was raised a few feet above the rest of the floor. Nakayima watched uninterestedly from the upper terrace, high above the proceedings, as another diplomat steeped up, shuffled his notes and began speaking. Russian, if he remembered correctly. That would explain why everyone seemed to be paying attention to his words.

"Why do they bother?" Nakayima whispered.

The man who had been sitting next to him turned his head. He was old—how old precisely nobody really knew, but enough to have earned a long reputation. He had thinning gray hair and sunken face, lined by deep wrinkles. He might look frail, but Nakayima knew better; Musashi Kluge, Chief of the Intelligence Department of the Ministry of the Interior, was one of the most dangerous men in all of Japan. The word going around the Department was that he only came out when something was going to die.

"That is the thunder of civilization," Kluge said softly. "We are not barbarians after all."

Ironically put, Nakayima thought. Barbarians fight you face-to-face; civilization is the one that stabs you in the back. "But don't they know that what they say here doesn't matter? Everyone makes deals under the table."

Kluge nodded thoughtfully. "That is besides the point. Protocol must still be observed. But you do not see this. Because you do not see beneath the surface." Kluge leaned forward, keeping his eyes on the speaker. "But it makes no difference. I did not fly you all the way to Kyoto just to debate politics."

Nakayima knew what he meant; he wasn't too keen on politics anyway. Politicians and bureaucrats owned the lowest circle of hell as far as he was concerned, probably right next to spies. "I'm sorry to say there hasn't been much progress. Maybe a different Agent--"

"Not an option, unfortunately. You were chosen for your background. Everyone else would stand out far to much to be effective."

"Ikari is still suspicious."

"Of course, but your position is purely civilian and entirely legitimate. We could have always forced another spy into their midst. That we did not and instead appointed an open representative can only lead to second-guessing on Ikari's part."

"Ikari doesn't seem like the second-guessing type," Nakayima said. It was true enough. He couldn't have summed up his impression of Ikari any better if he'd had a psychology degree, and he knew Kluge wouldn't mind him praising what was basically an enemy; it'd make the kill all the more satisfying for him.

"Regardless. The best way to hide our intentions is to do so in plain sight. NERV can revoke your position. Doing so, however, will result in severing ties with the civilian administration and, more importantly, its money. And that is the one thing they can't do without. As long as our position remains firm, I see no reason to change it."

Nakayima nodded. "But for how long?"

The Russian speaker was now gesticulating wildly with his hands. At least he wasn't banging his shoe on the podium like Nakayima had read in history books. Most the chamber looked about to explode with rage, including the European contingent.

"As long as NERV's Special Protection Order remains in place," Kluge said. "And our friends down on the floor are seeing to that. We know why, of course. Russia wants weapons—the Evangelion. China wants respect, and weapons. America—we are not entirely sure: cheap electronics, cheaper cars, who knows. Fortress America needs us more than we need her; if worse comes to worse we can compromise, meaning we'd be dealing with two vetoes instead of three. The point is, until such time as this situation is resolved we need to consolidate what we know and inquire about what we don't. Which is why we need to know what Ikari wants with that software he borrowed."

"What does the ISSDF say?" Nakayima asked.

The Information branch of the Strategic Self-Defense Force was made up of Japan's leading computer experts, and of those agencies that, like the Ministry of the Interior, were all but shrouded in secrecy. If they could not answer a question, the odds were such a question could not be answered by anyone.

"Nothing. It wasn't their project to begin with. And anything related to the Evangelion is so proprietary that it requires years of expertise and far more knowledge than we possess just to make sense of it. The archives section that disk was originally filed under makes it particularly difficult."

Nayaima didn't understand and said as much. Musashi Kluge seemed surprisingly patient for someone who was not normally required to take questions from anyone.

"The ISSDF," he explained, "categorized its archive by the order of importance of the projects archived within. These include everything you can imagine—counter-terrorism, government intelligence, military projects, even that Jet Alone incident. Everything. It's a practical way of doing things, but it leaves up to interpretation what exactly is important and what is not. NERV has never been a threat, not to us, not ever. And in 15 years, and almost half a century before that, a lot of information has been gathered. But because NERV has always been self-sustained and we lacked the knowledge there was quite a lot that was simply allowed to pass into the archive unanalyzed. And other things have been analyzed and deemed completely unworkable. We don't know what most of them are even supposed to do, only that they are no threat. That disk was one of those things."

"You don't think he was testing us?" Nakayima kept his gaze on the floor show below them. "It seems to me that he would make a request from us to test whether or not we'd comply. If we'd refused he would know that we were up to something. It's no kind of weapon."

"It's no kind of weapon that we know of. I don't think a man like Gendo Ikari wastes his time trying to call other people's bluff. Whatever the information stored in this disk does, he intends to use it. And I have grown weary of trying to guess what he's up to next."

Downstairs things seemed to be settling down. The furious din that had filled the chamber diminished and eventually vanished altogether. There was look of relief on several of the delegates as they once again returned to their seats. Nakayima took this break in hostilities as a sign that the parties involved, like good politicians everywhere, had resolved to not resolve anything. He turned his head to Kluge.

"So you think it could be dangerous, sir?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I need to know." Kluge leaned forward, pinning him with a cold, unflinching glare. "I need you to do your job."

Nakayima wasn't sure why but he felt a shiver run down his spine. The eyes he was staring into were like those of a predator, sharp, cunning. And utterly dangerous.

"And what about Katsuragi?" Kluge asked.

"The situation has not presented itself," he said. "I'm concerned that actively seeking her out might arouse her suspicion. In that case she is unlikely to cooperate."

"She was close to Ryogi, perhaps closer than anyone else. We need whatever information he might have left her before his untimely death."

"Assuming he left anything."

"The lack of a final report is troubling. On the one hand it would indicate the lack of any significant information, which we know simply can't be the case. On the other hand, in the case that such information had been found but not passed along to us, I would neglect my duty if I did not try to search for it. I do not believe the manner of his death had anything to do with his data gone missing; someone like Ryogi would have known danger was closing in and he would have made sure his legacy lived on. No, I'm positive. Whether it indicates a shift in his loyalties or simply a desperate effort to unload valuable information, he passed something to Katsuragi."

"You don't want to know if he betrayed us?" Nakayima asked.

"It matters little now. The dead have no loyalties."

* * *

The back of the limousine was quiet aside from the muffled sound of engine as it revved along, carrying the weight of the car, driving long through busy city streets. The movement was barely perceptible, only tiny variations in momentum as brakes or accelerator were applied.

Commander Ikari had been staring out of the side window since they left the conference, his gaze distant but not altogether lost in thought; the Sub-Commander sat facing the rear, holding a small book in his wrinkled hands.

Neither men said anything.

Finally, as they banked a curve, a call came through the intercom from the obscured front seat. Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki reached out hand almost interestedly and pressed a button. "Yes?" he said, his voice carefully measured as always.

"They're done, sir," came the voice from the front.

"And?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"No vote," the man said.

"Thank you for keeping us informed," Fuyutsuki said, and depressed the intercom. Then he closed his book and gave Commander Ikari his attention. "It seems you were right."

"I know their type," Commander Ikari said. He had his elbow propped up on his the window sill, his hand turned back so his knuckles brushed his chin in the classic 'thinking' position. He did not seemed relaxed, but neither did he appear stressed. He gave the aura of being as completely in control of his own emotions as he was of the situation.

They had only been at the Security Council for a few minutes, long enough be seen because it lent the meeting an air of credibility since it was NERV's fate being discussed. Talks had been made regarding certain assurances, and loyalties had been reaffirmed.

The Commander, it seemed, had come just for that. When these private meetings were done, they had left. Neither of the two men seemed concerned that their appearance had been so brief that it might have been completely needless.

"The Russian Ambassador, I think, was egregiously formal, all things considered. But I think at least he was being honest," Fuyutsuki said. "As long as we have a guarantee of dissent there shouldn't be anything to worry about. I'm not sure about the Chinese. They are not the kind of people I feel comfortable dealing with."

"They are like businessmen everywhere," the Commander said, unconcerned. "They want what they want and will compromise anything, including whatever principles they might have. Their greed for power is to our advantage."

"Greedy men do not deal too well with time lines," Fuyutsuki retorted.

"But they know better than to displease us. What we offer—what they stand to gain from us is not something they would ever be able to do by themselves. And because they know they need us they will not stray."

"Or so you think."

"They have made good on their promise so far, haven't they?"

The Sub-Commander snickered, the wrinkles on his features deepening. It was a strangely reassuring gesture. "For the time being. Politics can be fickle, just look at the Americans. Every fours years it's something else, some new issue that was completely irrelevant to the previous administration. At least the Chinese are consistently underhanded."

"A compliment?" Commander Ikari said, faking a kind of surprise. "From you?"

"Of sorts, I suppose."

"To be honest, I have always been rather impressed with America's solution to government. Life is ever-changing. We know as much from our studies of nature. But while engineers have constantly attempted to replicate nature's designs for the last century, politicians do not tend to pay attention. Change represents success in nature. Animals within an ecosystem face many challenges, but ultimately it all comes to their ability to change. Americans have replicated this in a political system. Change—everything changes. Because it either changes, or it dies."

Ikari turned his head towards her. "Wouldn't you agree, Rei?"

Rei Ayanami almost missed the question altogether. She had gotten so used to being ignored that she felt rather like a ghost, as if she wasn't even present while conversations passed by right next to her. She had been there in the meeting, in every one of them in fact, and throughout the day nobody had addressed her even as a matter of courtesy. She hadn't spoken a word in hours, as none were required of her, and now that she was being called to answer she wasn't sure that she wished to speak.

"I cannot say," she answered. She had been sitting there watching them silently, listening, but it was clear that Commander Ikari at least had not forgotten about her presence.

He gave her a stony look, neither pleased nor displeased.

"Why is that?"

"Because it is not important to me," she said, her voice a soft whisper.

Though she knew some people would find the Commander intimidating, Rei did not feel compelled to look away. She sat with her hands together on her lap, a neutral posture, her eyes fixed but not staring.

"Ah," Fuyutsuki said. "But don't you think you should expand your horizons? Learn as much as you can?"

Rei shook her head in a way that was barely visible. "I am sorry. I did not mean it in that sense. I meant that it is not important to me because it is simply beyond my scope. Whether political change reflects natural change, and whether those things create a lasting ideology are subjects that are irrelevant to my interest. I am not a politician. Considering such things would be a waste of my time."

"An honest girl." Commander Ikari's lips curled into the smallest of smiles. He turned his head to Fuyutsuki. "I think she has a point. We are not politicians either, so it's a waste of our time as well."

"If you say so," the Sub-Commander said. "But old men are allowed to indulge."

Her part in the conversation evidently over, Rei went back to being silent. But she attended more intently now in case she was called on to speak again.

* * *

No one could have known they were humans, their true identities locked behind their numbered monoliths in the darkened room. They towered like gods above a world that had feared them and their ancestors for centuries. They had survived up to now, outlived purges and holocausts and war, and would survive still until the time of Instrumentality. They were Gog and Magog, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

"Times wastes away. How much can one man hate his own path, maybe enough to forget his involvement and his responsibility?" SEELE 01 spoke. His voice was deep, mechanical.

"He must pay, and those who follow him as well," SEELE 10 said. "Such filth should not enter the Garden, nor eat of the Fruit."

"The end is at hand. There is nothing more. Third Impact, humanity's final purification," SEELE 03 interjected.

"We have defeated the Angels and thus earned our path to the Tree of Life. It's our divine right. Third Impact. Instrumentality, a work in progress, an end to life."

"Only the life of Man, the death of the body, our mortal shell," SEELE 05 offered. "Man has become a race of worthless creatures, restrained by their own individuality, their own AT Fields. Instrumentality must be launched so that Man can be free."

"So that we can all be free," announced SEELE 01. "But first we need a Judas."

"He has already been contacted," SEELE 03 said. "He will be briefed upon our request. Man's final betrayer."

* * *

"Hurry up, stupid! I don't wanna be late on my first day!" Asuka's shrill voice broke the quiet morning air as it had on countless previous occasions. "Come on! Come on!"

"I'm coming!" Shinji called urgently back. Misato had been right about Asuka, he decided, hurriedly fixing their bento boxes for the day with whatever was handy as he'd overslept and fallen behind on his routine.

"Come ON!"

Shinji finished up, wrapping their bentos, and went to join Asuka. She was already waiting by the door, tapping her foot impatiently, and looking remarkably energetic in her school uniform. The two pointy neural connectors holding her hair out of the way stuck out from either side of her head like cutesy devil's horns. He'd always thought they fit her very well.

Misato had definitely been right. The gloomy girl that had come out of the hospital just a few days ago had practically disappeared, fading into the background and replaced by the loud, conceited Asuka he'd come to know and, in a way, accept. He was not naïve enough to believe she was back to normal, but at least being around her wasn't depressing anymore, and it didn't make him feel sorry or guilty either. It was at least tolerable. He thought that he could live with that.

She sighed huffily as he handed her a bento, which she shoved into her book bag while he stooped down to slip on his shoes.

Just as he did, Misato leaned around the corner into view. "Have a nice day, kids."

"Whatever." Asuka rolled her eyes, slid open the door and headed off.

Shinji straightened up, draped his own book bag over his shoulder, and was prepared to follow suit without so such as a curt reply when Misato stopped him.

"Look, Shinji," she said, stepping fully into the tiled landing, "you can be mad at me all you want, but I don't feel like being mad at you, so I'm gonna keep trying to talk to you, even if you don't want me to. One of us has to be the adult here, and apparently it'll have to be me."

"Why do you keep harping on me?" Shinji replied angrily. "Asuka can get away with being upset, but I can't?"

"Asuka is Asuka. I'd expect you to be much more social."

"Well, I don't feel like being very social to you." Shinji hitched up his bag higher and stormed through the open door, aware that he was leaving a disappointed-looking Misato behind.

Asuka was standing in front of the elevator, checking her watch. "That was quick," she said sharply. "What did she want?"

"Uh?" Shinji came to stand behind her, intently examining floor tiles. Slowly, his anger at Misato began to fade.

"Don't play stupid with me, Third Child." Asuka turned to him, her hands firmly planted on her hips. "What's up with Misato?"

"I'm just …" Shinji didn't want to talk about this, but keeping Asuka out of the loop was probably a bad idea. "I'm mad at her because she promised I wouldn't have to pilot Eva and, well, she broke that promise."

Asuke frowned, indicating she expected there to be more. "And?"

"That's all."

"Are you serious? People always make promises they can't keep. It's better than lying. You didn't really think she'd keep it, right? I mean, not even you are THAT stupid, Shinji. She told you what she thought you needed to hear, what you wanted to hear. You can't hold people to their promises. That's just immature."

"Yeah, I know," Shinji said, though he hadn't really at the time. "It just feels—" he hesitated.

"Like you were betrayed?" Asuka finished for him.

He nodded anyway.

"Oh, grow up."

The elevator opened with a ping and Asuka stepped inside, a slight stroll in her step. Shinji stayed behind, wondering if he should bring up something he had wanted to say since she'd come home but had not been able to gather the courage. She shot him an inquisitive look that basically made the decision for him.

"Um, Asuka," he started. "I've been wanting to tell you … that Misato was right in the hospital." He tried a kind smile that he knew made him look silly. "About you not belonging there and about coming home. I'm glad you are—"

Asuka narrowed her eyes, her expression soured, wiping the smile from Shinji's face. Blue eyes narrowed angrily.

"I don't care what Misato said," she said. "Lets get one thing straight, Third Child. The last thing I want—the absolutely last thing I want—is pity from the likes of you. Nothing she said, and nothing you said got me here. I'm here for myself."

"Sorry," Shinji said softly, regretting having opened his mouth, as he knew he would. "I didn't mean to make you angry."

Asuka stepped towards him; her body language aggressive.

"Do you want to know what your problem is?" she said, her voice rising shrilly. "You take what you have for granted, and you think it gives you the right to talk down to me. But you've never had to work for what you have, you just get in your Eva and it goes and you are the hero. You get mad at Misato because she wants you to do what you were born to do. Well, Third Child, some of us can't choose what we want to do. Some of us lowly mortals do what we can, all that we can, because we have nothing else while you decide you are too good for the rest of us, and what do we get?"

She pressed a hand firmly against her chest.

"WHAT DID I GET? I got my head fucked with! And you sat there and watched and did nothing! What, you thought I had it coming, didn't you? You could have helped, couldn't you?" She was screaming now. "So don't tell me you are glad about anything that involves me! Don't give a damn because you want to make yourself feel better! That just makes it worse!"

Even had he wanted to, Shinji could not have managed a reply, frozen by the sudden viciousness of the outburst, painfully aware that he had started it.

He'd underestimated just how deeply Asuka's words could cut him—how much it could hurt to expose himself through what should have been an act of sympathy. He realized then that he'd been wrong about Asuka all along, even about the things he thought he'd figured out; he was so far away from understanding anything about her that they might as well have never met.

And he had no idea how to make it right.

Her venom spent, and seemingly realizing that Shinji was not going to provoke her any further—that he had resolved to simply not saying anything at all—Asuka turned around and entered the waiting elevator again.

Shinji did not follow her. He was still frozen in place, too confused and even hurt to think about what he was supposed to do now.

"Well?" Asuka's hand hovered over the elevator controls. "Are you gonna stand there all day like an idiot or are you getting in?"

All Shinji had to do was take a step and he'd be in the elevator with her, riding together with someone who surely hated him. One step was all he needed to muster and yet he could not because it would mean he'd be alone with Asuka, and then what? Uncomfortable silence? More screaming?

"I ... I ... " he stuttered, swallowing awkwardly. "I think I forgot something."

Asuka's glare studied him for a second, as if she were trying to determine whether he was lying and trying to avoid her. For that moment, the very obvious answer seemed to matter a great deal to her. A look of seriousness—something apart from her anger—crossed her face.

Then she turned up her nose. "Suit yourself."

She stabbed a finger angrily at an elevator button.

The doors started to close in front of him, and Shinji once again thought about stepping in with her. But as she slowly disappeared from view he could not ever bring himself to give her a final pleading look. He wanted to take that step and go with her, knowing fully that she probably didn't want him to. Like before, he couldn't decide to do something for himself if it meant defying others.

Nothing good would come out of this, Shinji thought sadly. No matter how much he wanted to bridge the gap between him and Asuka, he would have to accept that she was not willing to do the same. That he had to let her go.

And so the doors closed, and Asuka was gone.

* * *

**To be continued …**


	2. Try Again

Expanded Chapter 2. Thanks go to Big D and Mike. You dudes rock. Lets see, standard legal disclaimer applies, yadda yadda. I'll letting Darkscribes have the exclusive on this for a few weeks before posting on FFN. Feedback is welcome.

Revised: August 2009

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended**

**  
"I've lived to bury my desires,  
And see my dreams corrode with rust;  
Now all that's left are fruitless fires  
That burn my empty heart to dust."  
--Alexander Pushkin **

**  
Genocide 0:02 / Try Again.**

**

* * *

  
**

Asuka leaned heavily against the thin material of her door, looking down at the red neural connectors in her hands.

It felt strange being home, not so much a painful feeling but rather an odd one—like her heart had not yet decided if she should be sad or happy. Once she could not pilot her Eva they should have shipped her back to Germany in disgrace. Without Unit-02 she was worthless. No one needed her. Not even Stupid Shinji. So why had she bothered coming back here?

When she had first been brought out of sedation in the hospital she had just laid there on the bed, starring blankly at the ceiling, her abused mind not interested at all in what happened to her. The nurses did what they could to cheer her up as they did their rounds and cared for her. And it was that humiliating treatment that sparked some sings of life in her, and, true to her character, she began to fight.

The nurses seemed to have expected her to be thankful—she wasn't. She wouldn't let them get near her anymore, even had to be restrained on occasions when her violent struggling made her a danger to herself and those around her.

Then, one day in the middle of another fit, a nurse let it slip how she couldn't believe that such a nice brown haired boy had come to visit someone like her.

And Asuka became aware of her heart beating once again. Things changed after than. She became more willing, wanting now to get better so she could receive visitors. Surely, Shinji wanted the same thing. He had come to her, hadn't he?

But even that small hope turned into seething anger and bitterness as the days went by and she remained alone. Nobody ever came. She thought it would be better if she never felt anything again and tried to resign herself. At that, like at everything else, she failed, and began to sink back into an uncaring depression. Until finally …

Seeing Shinji in the hospital earlier had made something inside of her stir; a wonderful and yet strangely disgusting feeling she wished she could be rid of.

Why would Shinji, of all people, come to her? And why did it bother her so much that he hadn't done so before?

The answer was painful and obvious. As the Angel broke into her mind it resurfaced more than memories; the pain she had endured watching her mother in the hospital, cradling that stupid doll as if it were her own child while she stood by, ignored, had come hurtling back, and her heart shattered. Everything else—every toxic emotion she struggled to keep hidden—poured out of her until she was reduced to a hysterical, mutilated wreck, wounded beyond time's ability to heal.

Just like the wound left by her mother's death had never healed, merely festering and staying with her until that thing dug it up and—

Asuka's face hardened as anger flickered inside of her and pushed aside the thought; anger at the Angel, at Misato, at Shinji, at her own failure. She clung on to that anger for strength. Misato had brought her back to pilot Eva. That's what she was here for and not to spend her time dwelling on useless emotions, regardless of how powerful or haunting, like some pathetic little girl.

Piloting Eva was all that mattered now. They were working on something, Misato had said—something that might return Unit-02 to her. There was the reason she'd needed go on living.

She'd show them, she'd show them all.

Asuka Langley Soryu would once again be the designated pilot of Evangelion Unit-02.

The Second Child.

She reached into her damp mane, tracing her fingers along the thick curtain of hair that hung over one shoulder, lifting it up against the side of her head to pin it in place with a neural connector. She did the other side in the same customary way as she stepped over the discarded bits of clothing, old fashion magazines, and other personal effects that littered the floor and lay face-down on her own bed for the first time in months.

It was soft and comfortably warm, and the sheets were fresh with a faintly sweet scent of detergent that was a welcomed change to the sterile reek of hospital sheets.

Shinji's doing, Asuka thought, closing her eyes to let the feel and smell of being home engulf her.

She'd show him too.

* * *

Rei Ayanami always sat alone when outside of class, and she was always reading a book.

Nobody ever approached her to try to talk to her. Nobody ever talked about her either, the way they some times did about Asuka and the other girls. It was like she didn't really exist to the other students. And while this never seemed to bother her in the slightest, Shinji could not stand it. And so, when he got out of clean-up duty and saw Rei sitting on a bench in the school courtyard he could not resist going over to her.

He suspected that it was more than wanting to make her company. That because he felt so guilty about having shunned her for months he now was compelled, even forced, to do what he failed to do before.

"What?" Rei said as he approached.

Shinji choked on his words, and wondered how someone so quiet could also be so blunt. Or was he simply that transparent? "I'm just ... worried about you," he said uncertainly.

"Why?" Rei did not look up from her reading, her voice remained soft and even—any other girl would have sounded uninterested.

"Um, well, because people aren't mean to be alone." To Shinji there was something about the words that sounded hollow; he had spent so much of his life alone that it almost sounded like a lie.

"Some people choose to be alone because that is the only way to truly find themselves. It is easier to think when no one is around."

"So ..." Shinji murmured. "What do you think about?"

It wasn't intended as a deep question--he hadn't thought of it like that--just an attempt to get her talking and opening up, but he realized belatedly that it indeed one of the more esoteric things he had ever asked her.

"I have been trying to understand." There was long moment of silence after that, then, "Why do you refuse to pilot Eva?"

Shinji was taken aback, not because he was surprised that she knew but because that question had been haunting him for a while now and had caused a great deal of grief already. After being abused by Asuka on the subject he was unwilling to bring it up again. Her accusation that he was being childish still stung. With that, and the memory of the awful things he'd said to Misato, he could not bring himself to answer.

"I will tell you--" Rei started, but Shinji cut her off.

"Please don't. Asuka's already mad at me for this. And Misato. I don't want you to be mad at me too."

"I will tell you why I will pilot," Rei finished. "It is because life without purpose is worse than death."

But her reasoning was lost to him, drowned out of his head by the scream and the awful sensation of twisting emptiness in his stomach. "Pilot?" Shinji repeated, disbelieving and in shock. "Y-you?"

"Yes," Rei said calmly. "I am an Eva pilot."

"But ..." He felt stupid; his words sounded stupid, completely unable to convey just how wrong it was, both that she was being forced—and there was no doubt in his mind they were forcing her—and that she didn't seem to care. "But you can't."

She nodded. "I can. I am fit enough."

"It's not about being fit!" Instantly Shinji's eyes widened, his fists clenched. "Rei, they can't make you do this! Not after what it did to you. You ... you ... it killed you! And now you are just gonna go back? You can't!"

"It did not kill me, or I would not be here." Rei's calm demeanor stood in great contrast to his outrage. "And it did not kill her. She made a choice, as I make a choice. So when Unit-00 is ready, I will be its pilot."

"That's not a choice!" His voice trembled as he yelled, suddenly unable to fight the downpour of emotions.

Rei had died in her Eva—had died to protect him. She couldn't go back. And if she did, wouldn't that make him a coward? She had suffered horribly because of her Eva, and she had as much reason, perhaps more, to refuse piloting it as he did.

"Please, you can't do this to yourself." Then Shinji ventured a guess, the obvious one. "It's Father, isn't it? Rei, if you care about me at all, you won't do this, no matter what he says."

"And if you care," she said softly, "you will understand."

But Shinji was not willing to let it go. He owed it to Rei Ayanami to protect her, like she had done for him. He reached down, taking her shoulders in his hands and turned her to face him, half lifting her out of the bench. Her expression was of surprise; her eyes slightly wider than usual, lips pressed together. "Ikari?"

"Please, listen to me, Ayanami," he said, aware that he was on the verge of tears. "The last time you were in the Eva, you got caught by an Angel. I couldn't help you. And you were in pain, I could hear you screaming, but instead of letting it attack me, you ... you said goodbye to me and you ... I had to watch you die!"

The corners of her eyes sank. "Is that why you will not pilot, because you are afraid?"

Shinji nodded slowly. He found it difficult to keep his gaze locked with hers. Admitting his feelings was never an easy thing to do. "I am afraid to lose anything more."

At that, Rei's features relaxed once again and returned their usual neutrality. "You should not be. If you will not move because you are afraid, even when those around you need you to, then you have already lost everything."

Shinji let go of her. "Ayanami."

"Do not call me that. That was what you called her," she added, noticing the look on his face. "I am Rei. I am different." She raised her hands over her heart. "Even if I am also the same, like you said. And I am not afraid. And I will still move because I have something I do not want to lose."

Shinji rubbed a forearm across his teary eyes."What's that?"

"You."

He stared at her, stifling a sob.

Somehow that single word carried more with it than his entire side of the conversation, and the shock of it reduced any reply he might make to utter rubbish. Rei--the name sounded so perfect in his head--was not who he had feelings for, but that didn't mean he shouldn't care. Being different didn't erase what she had done on his behalf. And he couldn't let her put herself in danger while he refused to stop thinking about himself.

He had hurt Asuka because he had done nothing to help her; he had hurt Misato because he didn't understand. Other people needed him—the two of them before and Rei now—and it was for them that he should decide, not for himself. And become a man.

Just as Misato had said.

Suddenly he realized he owed his dark-haired guardian an apology. What his father had told him so long ago, that he needed to stand on his own two feet, suddenly sounded all too true. For someone who did not want anything to do with him, it had been good advice.

"Excuse me!" Asuka's sharp voice broke into his thoughts with all the subtlety of a hammer. "I hate to interrupt your secret little meeting, but the idiot should be coming home with me."

Shinji turned his head to find the redhead standing at the edge of the courtyard, staring them down with a glare. He didn't think that barging in and imposing herself like this was a very nice thing to do, but nothing good would come from point out such a detail. Rei seemed totally indifferent, not surprisingly.

Feeling like he had settled something with his conscience, he turned briefly to offer Rei a farewell, telling her to take care, then moved towards Asuka.

"What?" she grumbled.

"You know, if need me to—"

"_Need?_ I don't need anything from you." She looked down at herself and Shinji noticed there was a red stain on her blouse, partially concealed by the jumper's thick straps. "That idiot Nagara spilled something on me. I _want _you to do some laundry. That's what you are good for, isn't it?"

Not wanting to argue, he nodded. They headed off together. Shinji hoped that would be the end of it, but the silence did not last.

"So, you and Wonder Girl? All hooked up, uh?" Asuka said in a sarcastically syrupy tone as they walked down the steps from the school's main entrance and down onto the street. "I suppose it fits. She's the only one with less personality than you."

"We are not hooked up. She is not ..." Shinji caught himself, uncertain if Asuka had ever found out what had happened to Rei Ayanami. "She is not interested."

"Oh, please, I saw the look on her face when you grabbed her." She turned her voice into a raspy imitation of Rei's softer tones. "Oh, Ikari, your touch is so manly. Take me. I'll follow orders, just tell me what to do, like the obedient little puppet I am."

"Rei's not a puppet," Shinji said, annoyed.

Asuka rolled her eyes. "You probably like your girls like that, thought, right?" she said, her voice grating once again. "Obedient? Servile? Dancing on strings without a mind of their own?"

Shinji didn't respond to Asuka's provocation. They walked towards the train station under the last golden glimmer of sunlight, neither saying a word. The streets were mostly empty, only a few students lingered around the shops, buying snacks or giving the nearby arcade a whirl. He recognized none of the faces, and it seemed strange how detached he had become from any sort of normalcy, and how he had never bothered to meet any new people so that he also might have friends to hang out with after school.

They stepped onto the train platform, joining several more students also waiting for the train.

"I can't believe I'm stuck with you," Asuka said and lowered her head, her sullen manner coming out of nowhere. "I wish Kaji were here."

That was a subject Shinji hoped he would never have to talk to her about, and would be happiest if it was not brought up ever again. It had been painful enough to hear Misato's distraught cries when she listened to the message on her answering machine. He knew what had happened, nobody needed to tell him, and if Asuka still refused to believe him that was fine. That it would mean living in denial mattered very little if it made it easier on her.

Shinji pressed his lips together, but realized it would seem strange, uncaring even, if he didn't say anything. "Yeah, me too."

He watched her for a moment; Asuka did not seem to notice his reply at all, and instead stared dejectedly at the tracks.

* * *

The Dummy Plug test system rested upright in the middle of the room. It consisted of a tall glass cylinder raised up on a platform with a tangle of cables connecting it to the banks of computers that surrounded it. Aside from the circle of light falling on the equipment the room was plunged in darkness.

"The transfer rate is progressing as normal," Dr. Ritsuko Akagi announced from her position behind one of the computer terminal. Aside from her, Commander Ikari, and Rei Ayanami, who had been watching them silently, there was no one else present. Security was a manner of utmost importance.

"Binary memory patterns are what I expected. The DNA structures have suffered terrible deterioration on the 23rd chromosomal pair. The ribonucleic-protein string is broken in approximately 1,546,876 places. Far too many errors for the computer to fix."

"I see," Ikari said. He had his back to the doctor, staring contemplatively at the Dummy Plug, gloved hands in his pockets. "We will need Rei's DNA after all."

A bitter taste rose up in Rei's mouth. She wasn't sure what had caused it, but it must have something to do with what she knew was coming. Commander Ikari's wishes were not for her to understand, she had never intended that he would explain anything to her.

Still, she did not look forward to being connected to the Dummy System and though it would be her first time, there was an odd sense of dread in her mind. He had created her ... he could do whatever he wanted with her. It wasn't her place to object. She had no choice, but that did not imply willing desire. Truthfully, she did not want to do this.

But would he understand her if she said anything, would it take away from her meaning?

"I can fix the string without the necessity to replace the damaged chromosomes in their entirety." Ritsuko straightened, slipping her hands into her lab coat pockets. "However, the neural mapping was always going to require Rei's input, since we have to recreate the system almost from scratch. Using the computer—it will take time. Bringing all the sequencers on-line might take a while."

Commander Ikari nodded, taking in this new information. "Use Rei. There is no sense in wasting time if there is an alternative."

"It will be her first time. The process might not be ... entirely pleasant."

Ikari turned and fixed Ritsuko with a stony glare. "Would you rather waste my time than take what you need from a human--no, from Rei?"

Ritsuko seemed unnerved by his sudden forcefulness. "I am not wasting your time," she said. "I am merely suggesting a different course of action. Also, the computer could eliminate flaws that are common in the human genetic structure. I am not suggesting one or the other. I am merely presenting facts as well as consequences." She paused. "I know how you would hate to see Rei hurt."

Would he really?

Rei couldn't help the thought. Suddenly she felt embarrassed that she'd thought about refusing to obey him. He needed her--that was a fact. He wouldn't ask her to do this if it wasn't absolutely necessary. And then, only if there was nobody else who could do it.

She was needed.

It really felt wonderful.

"Rei's genetic structure has no flaws, doctor." Ikari replied. "You've seen to that yourself."

Ritsuko fell quiet, thought it was obvious she did not agree. Rei had always liked the doctor despite her sometimes brusque manner. She felt that she shared more with her than met the eyes, and found herself wanting to share a little of what she felt, but the right words were never there.

The feelings were just impulses, things without names that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the world. Like dreams, they were just there, just hovering quietly beneath the surface waiting to be touched and yet always out of reach. There were definitions for some of them. She had done her share of research looking up things in psychology text books, but it wasn't the same as having solid confirmation of what she was feeling from someone else.

"Are you reluctant to use Rei?" the Commander asked.

"No," Ritsuko said point-blank. "I don't think she is needed for this. I can do it."

"We do what must be done. We made her what she is, we gave her the soul she has. So, why not ensure that the soul will live on, despite the death of the body we created for it?"

"Is that all you care for? Lilith's soul?"

"No, not all," Ikari said. He walked slowly over to Rei and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. They were heavy, much heavier than his son's, and much stronger. He looked into her face and their eyes met. "Rei, do you understand?"

Rei nodded silently.

"Good." The corners of his lips curled up, a smile. He turned back to Ritsuko. "Now, about the Tablet."

"That's not a problem," Ritsuko said dispassionately. "There are no known compatibility issues with our system and the safety shell is still operational. The interface in usable enough. Both Unit-00 and Unit-02 should take it. The pilots are more of an issue." She looked at Rei. "Particularly the Second."

"I trust you are working on it," Ikari said.

"I am."

"Don't let me disappointed." Ikari gave Ritsuko another cold stare, then turned around and vanished into the darkness surrounding the dummy plug, leaving the two of them alone. Ritsuko seemed upset, her features suddenly tightened with anger.

Rei found it rather puzzling. Where had the anger come from? Had the Commander said something to her that Rei had failed to interpret?

People could be very temperamental.

"Doctor Akagi--"

"Shut up, Rei," Ritsuko quieted her harshly, and ran a hand through her dyed-blond hair, looking down to examine the computer screens. Rei let her gaze follow the doctor but could not find anything of interest on the screens and turned her attention to the Dummy Plug.

"There is much around here that needs doing," Ritsuko said. "We will start immediately. Strip."

Without uttering a word, Rei brushed off the shoulder straps of her uniform jumper and began to undo the buttons of her blouse. By the time she was naked, Ritsuko had opened the front of the glass cylinder and she stepped inside, her heart beating unreasonably fast.

Rei wondered what it was she felt, and why suddenly she was so cold that it could not be explained by her nudity. There was a ringing in her ears; her mouth was dry. It felt like ... the first time she had talked to Shinji Ikari on the train, when she had asked him if she was human.

It felt like what she had come to identify as fear. It didn't make any sense to her, but the feeling was there. An old, long-forgotten dread almost as if it were coded into her genes.

* * *

She was late ... again.

Panting loudly, Misato ran the final meters towards the main elevator leading to the Central Dogma HQ, cursing her lack of punctuality and the fact that the guys at the security checkpoint took an unreliably long time verifying her credentials even though she had been screened by the same guy every day since she started working here. As the heavy steel doors closed she managed to slip through.

The door locked shut, and the elevator hummed to life. She struggled to catch her breath before realizing that she was not alone in the small space.

Misato at once recognized the crest on the man's uniform, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. "Ministry of the Interior?" She rolled her eyes. "Great. Just what we need."

The man could not avoid smiling in amusement, glancing self-consciously down at himself, then turned his black, slanted eyes towards Misato with mild consideration.

"It could be worse," he said, stretching out his hand to her. "My name is Nakayima Junichi, Special Agent and Liaison to the Reconstruction Council. Basically, the guy with the checkbook."

Misato shook his hand firmly. She knew who he was but they had never met face to face. The Ministry had no further need for the sort of covert Agent they'd had in Kaji, and planting someone is a civilian role as was the case with Agent Nakayima was a much more direct way of achieving the same result. NERV could not refuse to take him in as the civilian authority was a crucial and necessary link in the chain that kept everything running smoothly, like the chain in a bicycle, and without which they weren't going anywhere.

Of course, that didn't mean she had to like him. As long as he stayed out of her way she didn't think he would be a problem.

"Katsuragi Misato, Major and NERV's Chief of Operations," she said as amicably as she could manage. "Basically, I blow stuff up."

A hint of recognition crossed the Agent's narrow-featured face.

"Katsuragi, as in Dr. Katsuragi? The Katsuragi?"

Misato nodded.

"My father," she said shortly. She was not interested in reviving dead painful memories, and especially not with a Ministry tool. "Can we talk about something else? It hardly seems professional to bring up my family history with someone I don't even know."

"I can understand," he said sounding apologetic. Misato couldn't tell if he was sincere or it was an act calculated to squeeze some information out of her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," he explained. "It's just that our fathers knew each other, I think. I've heard that surname since I was little."

"Don't you think there is enough wrong with the world as it is to worry about the sins of the previous generation?" Misato said pointedly.

"I guess you are right." Nakayima was about to say something else when the elevator doors opened. He turned to Misato and locked eyes with her for the first time. "Well, nice finally meeting you. I need to get going. Lots of paperwork, you understand?"

"Yes. Yes, I do, Agent Nakayima," Misato said, in her most polite voice. "Have a good day."

The agent nodded and stepped out of the elevator. Misato's eyes narrowed suspiciously and leaned against the metal wall as the doors closed and she was alone in the elevator.

It was interesting that the MOI bothered at all. The relationship with the Reconstruction Council which ran the rebuilding effort above the Geo-Front was strained enough that a liaison made sense, probably why the government had created the position in the first place. Misato did not believe for a moment that it was his only objective, however. He was up to something. And if she had figured it out, so must have Commander Ikari.

Then why was this Agent still here? Misato thought. Unless Commander Ikari had found a use for him.

She shook her head. Whatever. It wasn't her problem for the time being—she had plenty of those without worrying about some random bloodsucking bureaucrat.

* * *

Misato had already left for work when Shinji got up in the morning, so he didn't get a chance to tell her about his talk with Rei and that he was sorry for the things he said to her.

He was disappointed, in a way. He knew it would make her feel better to know that he wasn't mad at her anymore and also he could finally get it off his chest. He could call her cell phone, he'd already thought about that, but this was the sort of thing that needed to be said in person. He hoped he would get a chance tonight.

Setting about his usual routine, Shinji got himself dressed in his school uniform and prepared breakfast. Usually, Misato left a pot of coffee already made, but it seemed she had left in a rush so he took it upon himself.

He placed several loaves of bread on the toaster and pulled up some eggs from the fridge. Asuka liked hers scrambled, so that's how he made them. She also liked bacon, he needed to remember to pick some up next time he stopped for groceries. It didn't take long for the aroma of his cooking to drift all over the apartment, and he expected Asuka would come into the kitchen at any moment, already clad in her uniform, to have breakfast.

He has glad they didn't have to talk as they ate, but he wouldn't really mind if she wanted to.

Well, Shinji had never really minded Asuka talking to him, but lately she did less and less talking and more screaming.

She was just so hostile to him sometimes, unwilling to show him even the smallest kindness. Maybe if she would set aside her fangs he could talk to her—really talk—without the fear that she might tear him up like she had before, when he had merely sought to comfort her and share a little sympathy. He wished that he could.

It would give him a chance to share the strange feelings he had, and maybe finally figure out what they were supposed to mean and why she always seemed to be in the middle of them.

He had placed everything on the table, the eggs, coffee, toast, juice, and everything else they might need, but there was no sign of Asuka. Strange—she didn't get up earlier than he did unless she had a reason. He did a quick check and found her shoes were still on the landing; she was definitely still home.

"Asuka, breakfast is ready," he called, knowing he risked a tongue-lashing.

There was no answer.

Shinji frowned worriedly. Was she sick? It could be. She'd spent most of the previous night locked in her room and the only time he'd seen her come out was to use the bathroom, and she had seemed put-upon—more so than usual, anyway. But Asuka would have let him know if she wasn't feeling well, if for no other reason to make sure he didn't bother her.

He walked the short distance to her bedroom and knocked on the door.

"Asuka, breakfast is ready," he repeated. "Come on, or it's gonna get cold."

Still nothing.

"Asuka, are you sick? I can get you something if you don't feel--"

The thin wooden door slid partially open, just wide enough for Asuka to poke her head out. Her expression was sleepy, her long flowing red mane tousled, as if she had just this second been awoken and gotten out of bed, which Shinji realized was most likely exactly what she had done.

Though most of her remained hidden behind the door, he could clearly see that she was not wearing her uniform. She looked at him with a frown, questioningly but not angered in her usual manner.

"What?" she asked rubbing her eyes. Her voice was oddly soft, completely lacking the glass edge Shinji had come to identify with her character.

"Breakfast," Shinji said simply, pointing a thumb in the general direction of the kitchen. Then, feeling rather guilty for having bothered her, added, "Sorry, I know you don't want to be late for school."

Even in their present drowsy state, Asuka's eyes retained their bright sapphire depth as they narrowed into slits. "I'm not going to school, stupid. I've got my first test with Unit-02 today."

"Oh. "Shinji blinked, remembering someone—Misato or maybe Asuka herself—had told him about that and he had completely forgotten. He really did feel kinda stupid now. "Oh, okay. I'll go then. Breakfast is done anyway. Just leave everything in the sink when you're done."

He started to leave, but before he could make it out of the corridor and into the open living room, Asuka called out to him. "Shinji, wait."

Turning quickly back to her, he caught a glimpse of something strange on her eyes. Indeed, her whole expression seemed different, softer, like her voice had been.

"Aren't you coming?" Asuka said. "To my test, I mean."

"Uh?" Shinji didn't understand. "I ... I don't think so. I have nothing to do with it. Besides, I'd just get in the way, don't you think?"

He was certain she would agree with him. Of course he'd get in the way, she'd tell him. The only reason she was asking was to make sure he didn't think about showing up and messing things up for her.

It was just the sort of thing she would say; he was sure. But she didn't, and to Shinji's astonishment her gaze dropped to the floor and she bit down on her lip, holding back whatever reply she wanted to make. Asuka was a very direct person, Shinji had realized that soon after they met: if she wanted something she would let you know, and if she didn't like something she would really let you know. But looking at her now she seemed very uncertain about what to say.

Maybe she was sick after all, Shinji thought.

"Asuka," he said carefully, "why do you ask?"

The sound of her name had a hardening effect on Asuka's face. She seemed to pick herself up and become once again the haughty girl that resided in Shinji's mind.

"It was just a dumb question," she replied sharply. "And even if I were to explain it, I would never think a little boy like you would understand. Go away."

With that she retreated back into her room and closed the door.

Something was bothering her, that much he could see. It was a plain as the look she had worn on her face just a moment ago. No matter if she thought he was stupid or a little boy and thus was not worth the effort it would take to explain what it was to him, he wasn't blind. Did she want something from him? Not Asuka--the less she saw of him the happier she was and the less he would bother her. But that look …

Was she sad?

And what if she did want something? What could he possibly have that she might want from him?

If he just knew he would give it to her, not even asking anything in return—it could be anything and everything, and he would give it without compromise or regret simply because it was she who wanted it. All she had to do was ask.

Shinji realized then that although the door that separated them was merely a few paper-thin sheets on a wooden frame, it might as well be a great wall. As he had many times before, he wanted to break through. He wanted to be able to tell her that he did not blame her for who she was, insufferable as she might be at times. That was the person she had grown into.

He could accept that if she could equally accept him for who he was.

Wishful thinking, Shinji told himself with a sigh. Asuka would never allow him to come close to her even if he had to courage to push. Perhaps it was for the better. They would only hurt each other in the end. He did not want to fight with Asuka anymore; the best thing to do was to keep his distance.

She would be happy, Shinji was sure, if he did.

Holding on to that thought for consolation, Shinji picked up his toast and, after slipping into his shoes and slinging his book bag securely across his shoulders, left the apartment.

The day was bright and warm, the new sun still low in the eastern sky; the sounds of the city were all around him, honking cars, roaring trains, jackhammers, people talking and walking and just living. He tried to ignore all of it as he walked to the train station.

The first thing Shinji noticed when he stepped onto the mostly-empty train car was that Rei was not there. This struck him as odd since lately she had been pretty good at keeping attendance and it wasn't often that she missed school. Together with their talk yesterday, her absence filled him with an overwhelming sense of uneasiness not all that different from the odd feeling he'd gotten from Asuka earlier that morning.

Toji and Kensuke tended to call him ungrateful for not appreciating the fact that he was constantly surrounded by pretty girls, but if they only knew how much those relationships—if they could be called that—troubled him they would sing a different tune. Rei, Misato, Asuka; it seemed all he did was hurt those around him.

He made up his mind quickly to check up on Rei. At worse he'd be late for school, no big deal. He switched trains at the next station. Rei lived in on one of the most run-down part of the city, in a dirty-looking apartment block that seemed more like a prison than a place for people to live on, and was mostly deserted. On his previous visits he had always heard the rumble and roar of construction machinery nearby, but now there was an eerie quiet in the morning air.

Apartment 402's bell was still broken so he knocked, and ignored the sense of déjà vu. There was no answer; he knocked again, louder. After another moment, the door opened.

Shinji gasped.

Unlike Asuka earlier, the girl standing in front of him really did look awfully sick. Her eyes were bloodshot and lidded, ringed by dark circles that stood out in dire contrast to the creamy pale skin of her face; her hair was a mess, and she was leaning heavily on the door, her shoulders sagging awkwardly. She wore only her school shirt and underwear.

"What is it?" Rei murmured weakly.

"Rei?" Shinji could not keep his concern to himself. "What happened?"

"Doctor Akagi had to perform a test. I complied as I was ordered," Rei said. Her voice was so low it was barely audible. "My head has been hurting all night."

Test? What could Ritsuko have done to her to leave her like this?

"Don't you have some medicine?"

Rei nodded, wincing in pain. "There are some in a drawer. But I do not know what they are for."

"I could have a look," Shinji offered. "I'm no doctor but if you have some aspirin that will probably do it."

Silently, Rei stepped aside to let him inside her small apartment. Even by Tokyo-3 standards, it was a rather sparse place, comprised of a single room used as a bedroom and a bathroom off to the side, and small kitchen area.

Shinji took off his shoes at the door. The floor was cheap, checkered-pattern tile that had begun to fade, and covered by numerous stains including several that looked like blood. He made his way without stepping on anything; Rei, barefooted as she was, didn't seem to care in the slightest.

She had never been one for tidiness, and so there was also garbage strew everywhere, mostly plastic bags and empty food container and school papers.

There were only two bits of furniture, a small unkempt bed with a thin mattress, and a nightstand from which hung a trash bag full of used bloody bandages; a little fridge took up a corner, covered with plates, cups and other eating utensils.

Not bothering at all about her state of undress, Rei crawled into bed on all fours and lay on her side, looking at Shinji as he approached behind her. He tried not to look at her exposed body, at the way her white skin seemed to glow in the morning light. He swallowed awkwardly. When he was standing uneasily by her nightstand she pointed to one of the drawers.

"There," she said.

Shinji opened it ... and stared.

The drawer was full of pills, some loose and rattling around, some in still in their clear plastic containers, and some in white bottles. Hesitating slightly, Shinji picked one of these bottles up and read the back of the label. They were painkillers. He picked another. And another.

It was a drawer full of painkillers.

Horrified, he looked at Rei, his words becoming stuck in his dry throat. "R-Rei?"

"What?" she said, and did not appear to care or understand his sudden trepidation at all. She stirred, lifting her hands to grasp her head as if to protect herself from an unseen something, and closed her eyes.

"Are these all yours?" Shinji managed.

"No," Rei said quietly. "They were hers. I don't know what they do or what they are for. They have always been there. I think maybe … I think I know why. It hurts."

Shinji looked down at the bottle of pills in his hand. He had never known that Rei Ayanami lived in so much pain. She had never told him. "Rei, what did Ritsuko do to you?" he asked again.

"I was ordered …" she shook her head, gasping in pain due to the motion. "I was ordered not to tell."

Shinji brought down his eyebrows. He didn't like the sound of that at all—why would Rei not be able to tell him something? Did she mean she wasn't supposed to tell anyone, period, or just him in particular?

He could press the issue, asking her questions until he got the answer he wanted, but looking at her pained expression he decided that now was not the time. Rei wouldn't hide something from him if she thought he needed to know. Even if she was ordered to. He believed she wouldn't, at least.

Rummaging through the drawer, Shinji picked up on of the unopened bottles which seemed to be the most recent addition to the drawer, checked the expiration date to make sure they were still good, and opened it. He poured a glass of water from the kitchen, then set it down on the nightstand and popped out a pair of little red-and-white pills.

"This will help," he said to Rei. "It's pretty strong. You shouldn't take more than a few a day."

Rei tried to sit up on her own, but her painful body language was too much for Shinji and he helped her, holding her gingerly but firmly, careful not to cause her any more pain.

She took the pills from him and swallowed them with a gulp of water, then lay back down on the bed. Shinji fluffed the pillow beneath her head and found himself wishing he could do more to ease her pain.

"Ayanami …"

"I am not her," she said, stretching her hand into the air almost as if she hoped to catch something. "A name carries a great deal of a person. It is not just a name. It is also a thought. A feeling. I share her name, but not the other things attached to it. Because I am not her."

"Then how should I feel, seeing you in front of me and not being able to call you what I called her?" Shinji asked, aware that just speaking pained her. "Because you look just like her."

"You should grieve, like I wish I could. You are lucky."

He wanted to tell her how he really wasn't. Rei didn't understand—nothing in her limited experience could prepare her for the kind of pain that came through loss. But that burden should not be hers to carry, and he should not make her.

"I have these emotions inside of me," her voice was vague, the words seemingly addressed to no one. "And despite that, there is something missing. As if I have misplaced something that used to have great value. I know they do not belong to me, and at the same time I know—I feel—like they do. That they are mine as much as they were hers. Is there something wrong with me?"

He knew before opening his mouth that there was nothing he could say to help her. "Aya—I'm sorry."

"Do not be," she said. "You miss her, I know. I wish I could be her just for you. I wish for many things."

Slightly embarrassed, Shinji tried to recall if he had ever heard Rei Ayanami talk like this before.

"I wish … that I could understand why the Second does not like me. I wish I could know why you cry. I wish I could escape."

"So do I," Shinji said.

"What else ..." she asked, but it was clear her mind was not all there, "do you wish for?"

Shinji waited.

Within minutes of closing her eyes, Rei had fallen asleep. Her hands were still tensely clutching the bedding so Shinji bent over her and opened her fingers gently, and stared at her beautifully pale form. Her face became more relaxed now, resting on the linen that was as white as her skin.

Finally she seemed to have found some peace.

Straightening up, Shinji took a deep breath. "Ayanami," he said, knowing she couldn't hear him. "I wish you hadn't done what you did."

He turned and closed the pill drawer, then back to the blue-haired girl on the bed. "You were right. I don't want to lose anyone anymore. And that is why … that is why I will pilot Eva. I have to face it, like you do, like Asuka does. And, even if I can't help, I think the least I do is try."

The room was quiet. Shinji stood there for a while, thinking that maybe he should stay with her until she was feeling better. He wouldn't be missed at school—the lectures were always boring and always the same, and Kensuke would fill him in if he missed anything.

The Class Rep. would surely give him an earful, but he knew she too would understand once he told her he'd been looking after Rei Ayanami because nobody else would.

* * *

"I am not happy with Rei's condition," Gendo Ikari said as he walked down the hallway to his office, his gloved hands in his pockets, not looking at the short haired blonde woman that walked alongside him. His flat voice denoted no sign of anger, but Ritsuko could tell he was very much displeased.

That was going to happen regardless so it didn't concern her much. Rei was his pet, and masters were always upset when something happened to their pets.

"I told you it was not going to be pleasant," Ritsuko said calmly. "Mapping the neural pathways requires a delicate touch. With much of the equipment having to be scrambled on such short notice there was not much that could be done. Besides, it was her first time. The lack of any such previous stimuli makes it worse than it really is."

"You did not have to torture her," Ikari said darkly.

Ritsuko felt a twinge of pleasure course through her like electricity. "I did no such thing," she said at once. "If I really wanted to … "

"You would not be so obvious about it?" Ikari cut her short. "My good Doctor, I know you better than that. If you wanted to hurt her you would not care if you were being obvious or not. You would just do it. Exactly in the same manner as when you destroyed the Dummy."

Ritsuko had never been worried about him finding out—telling Rei to keep quiet about the experiment had other reasons and she was so quiet anyway it was unlikely she would ever complain to anyone. It did bother her that Ikari could figure her out so easily.

"Furthermore," Ikari continued, coming to a stop and finally turning to confront her, "you are responsible for her."

Ritsuko nodded, meeting his eyes evenly. How she despised this man and yet she was still by his side. "I know. I have always been responsible for her."

"Medically yes," Ikari said, his voice rock-hard. "But should anything happen to her, you will be held to direct account. And this time I do not think I will be so lenient as to simply imprison you. I can ill afford such childish behavior even from such a valuable asset as yourself. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir,"Ritsuko replied sharply, doing her best not to sound angry. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction. "Is that all? I have Unit-02 to attend to."

"For now it is. I understand Unit-02's activation and testing will take most of the day, but once that is done I want you back to working on the new Dummy. I do not like lacking a proper backup any more than I like not having a working Evangelion. I should hope to have it ready before Unit-A, just in case."

"There is always Unit-01," Ritsuko said. "It is fully operational should your son cooperate."

"We can't force him. Unit-01 refused the Dummy before, and in doing so refused me. Shinji has to choose on his own."

Ritsuko, possessing such an analytical mind as she did, thought the chances of that were next to zero. "What if he chooses not to?"

Ikari seemed to consider his answer carefully, for he took a short moment in which he looked her over from behind his spectacles before saying, "I hope it does not come to that."

* * *

"Locks one through fifteen secured. Hydraulic pressure remains constant. Proceed with safety checklist through item four-twenty-three."

"All personnel remain on alert status orange."

The mechanical voices echoed across the enormous metal and concrete box that formed Unit-02's containment cage as the steel mesh gate to the shuttle elevator opened with a loud racket, allowing its single red-clad passenger to exit.

Asuka, clad in her form-fitting plugsuit, sighed heavily and stepped onto the deck.

The garment had once been as much a symbol of her status as the neural connectors in her hair, and she had loved the way the flimsy red material wrapped tightly around her slim body and enhanced her young, supple curves—she had once even gone as far as padding the hard cups over her modest breasts to make herself appear more voluptuous.

It was like wearing a second skin, and for some reason it always felt warm and smelled like the inside of her Eva, and when she wore it there was no ignoring her presence.

But now, as she walked towards the slick, armored shape of Unit-02, she felt naked. She stood out as the girl who failed miserably, and she had never felt such disgust at being the center of attention.

The containment cage was brightly lit and fairly busy with activity. Wide catwalks and gantries ran along the perimeter of the cage and crisscrossing the large space within, and wrapped around the Evangelion allowing maintenance access.

There were several technicians working on bulky machines on the catwalk in front of her, doing what she didn't care to know. She had never bothered acknowledging them and other than the so-called Bridge Bunnies she couldn't address any of them by name if she wanted to. Why should she? After all, they were just worker bees, drones without faces, and she was the queen and it was their job to tend to her every need.

And now the queen was dead, and the drones looked at her with sympathy and promptly moved out of the way.

Asuka scowled at them bitterly, wishing she could spit at them so they would stop looking at her just like Shinji did.

That was how people looked at you when they thought you were useless—when they wouldn't come to see you in the hospital. A look that said, "Too bad you are alone, Asuka. Too bad you had to lose everything that gave meaning to your life. Too bad they couldn't let you die."

Really, too bad.

She came to stand under the massive shadow of her once-beloved Evangelion and raised her head. Like her it was clad in red, in its case shiny plates of armor fitted to its slender frame. It had four eyes arrayed in pairs on either side of its face and an oval-shaped head.

Two shoulder-mounted pylons held hidden weapons in addition to its standard-issue progressive knife. It was secured to the cage by a large restraining harness anchored with thick hydraulic-driven bolts; a bulky mechanism was fitted to the back of its neck, above the armored insertion jack for the entry-plug.

The plug itself was held on its ready position, lying on a cradle on the top of the mechanism so that it could be secured into place just inside the rim of the jack by a crane standing nearby.

As a machine of total destruction, Unit-02 was both fearful in symmetry and graceful, and had the distinction of being the first Eva meant for production. It had been her pride and joy, her everything. Losing it had felt like losing someone dear to her all over again.

"Oh, hey, I didn't see you there."

Asuka turned just as Shigeru Aoba came walking around the nearest gantry. He had a clipboard in his hands, probably some sort of checklist, and was clearly busy, so she was more than a little surprise when he stopped what he was doing and headed over to her.

He was much taller than Asuka and towered over her. She refused to look up at him and returned her gaze to her Evangelion.

"How are you doing?" Aoba said.

"Fine." She put enough spite in her voice to make it clear she did not want to talk to him.

He hesitated for a second, then bent over so he could speak more privately to her. "Listen, Asuka, I know I really have no place saying things to you, but you have to know--" Aoba smiled at her pleasantly "--that we are all very proud of you. And that we are all rooting for you."

Asuka's eyes widened and something became stuck in her throat—she had not expected that somebody might try to support her. She had no illusion about what would happen, and while she was resigned, she had not expected ... kindness.

It almost felt alien to her.

She turned her head towards him. The sudden encouragement surprisingly managed to bring back a little of her pride out of the pit of despair. She would have never been able to thank him, to even admit that she was thankful that at least one person might not think of her as a harpy, but she got the feeling from him that he didn't expect it from her.

"We want you to do your best, okay?" he said, noticing her reaction. "Give it everything you've got."

Though she was at a loss for words and was not sure she shouldn't just start screaming at him for the insolence of actually _talking_ to her, Asuka nodded halfheartedly.

After returning the gesture with much more enthusiasm than the struggling Second Child, Aoba finished the rest of his routine under her strangely watchful gaze and finally headed off to take his position in the control room.

Left alone with her own thoughts again, it didn't take long for her to forget that there was a whole crew of people who wanted her to do good and returned to her previously grim disposition. She looked back up at Unit-02's familiar form.

Yeah, she told herself, no illusions.

This was the moment she had anticipated ever since coming out of the hospital—anticipated and dreaded.

Once the entry-plug was fitted into position, the small groves along its rounded end became caught on the insertion jack, locking into place. Asuka climbed the series of ladders on the loading mechanism that gave her access to the entry-plug's open hatch. Inside was a long, cylindrical space with a command chair situated about halfway down its length.

It was comfy a fit, custom made for the shape of her body, and comprised of an impact seat with two control yokes on either side of it and a console in front, nestled between her legs. The targeting computer was located above and behind her head. Asuka hoped she would never have to peer through that thing again.

"Asuka, we are ready to begin," came Ritsuko's voice through the communication system.

When the entry-plug was properly secured she was plunged into darkness. The sound of pouring liquid filled the space and she felt the cold grip of the LCL reach her through her suit. She took a deep breath and tried to relax as she was submerged in it.

"Initiate primary contact."

Asuka tried to ignore her.

Feeling the darkness closing around her, she brought up her legs and wrapped her arms them so that she was curled up in a ball. Her heart felt heavy, like she knew it would because she didn't belong here anymore.

This was the place where everything had gone wrong. She had climbed in here and gone into battle knowing that she had to prove herself, but she had never expected to—danger was something she had accepted but—

She had been broken. Her mind had been shredded into tiny, painful ribbons; her beating heart ripped from her chest. And she hadn't even been given a chance to fight back. She had been totally, completely helpless as the Angel had come inside her and … and raped her.

Rape—that was the only way to come to understand it.

The Angel hadn't touched her, but emotionally it had forced itself into her and torn her open and defiled her. Asuka had often wondered, when she dared think about the subject at all, if it might be less painful the other way around, if her body could have healed from such an assault more readily than her mind. It hardly mattered. Either way she had been scarred for life.

"Voltage is nominal," somebody called from the control room.

"Pulse and harmonics are stable."

"Initiate second set connections."

The darkness flashed into a rainbow of swirling colors as Unit-02 became active and the entry-plug walls transformed into a clear canopy that allowed her an unobstructed view of the world—the confined space of the concrete cage—beyond.

"All links connected. Eva Unit-02 is now active."

"Beginning complete systems check."

Several minutes went by. Asuka stared blankly outside her canopy, trying not to think about anything.

"Asuka, your synchrograph is extremely erratic. This is not going to work if you can't focus. Try to clear your head," Ritsuko said coldly. "You need to be able to open yourself up to the Eva. It's the only way to clear the starting indicator."

Her head was already as clear as she could make. There was nothing else she could do. "I'm trying."

Useless—she was useless. Nothing would ever go back to the way it was, and all those people outside wishing her well were just wasting their time. They shouldn't bother, like she shouldn't have bothered leaving the hospital.

Asuka curled up ever tighter and more desperately, holding her head in her hands, twisting her feet one on top of the other and curling her toes.

And in her anguish she could not believe she had once been happy to be chosen as an Evangelion pilot. She wished now that she never had, and that her Mama had loved her enough to take her along with her as she died. And she wished, more than anything that the broken pieces of the proud, arrogant girl she had once been could be swept aside so she could forget and finally resign herself without suffering.

"Try harder." Ritsuko admonished. "If you can't do it, your status will have to be revoked and you will be replaced, this time for good. I know you don't want that. I don't want that either. So, please, for your sake, concentrate."

"I said I'm trying!" Asuka wailed sharply, twisting her mouth into a feral snarl. "Do you think I want to be replaced? I'm trying!"

But, despite her tone, she already knew it was hopeless, and she wished they would all just stop talking to her and leave her alone for good.

Asuka closed her eyes and let her head sink deeper behind her knees. "Mama, I'm trying …"

In the gloom, there was not even an echo to carry her words.

"I'm trying ..."

* * *

Commander Ikari stood in one of observation decks, of which Central Dogma had many, peering intently on the show of light outside the window. The forest stretched below like a giant fungus, and surrounded the lake in a watery cauldron. Above, the huge dome of the Geo-Front, like an extension of Heaven, emanated the light by which life in Central Dogma was sustained. This was his home, his fortress.

"The disk has been delivered to the Chinese Branch," Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki said.

"Where the safety measures removed?" Ikari asked, not even turning to look at his aide.

"Every one of them." Fuyutsuki had confirmation of that very fact earlier in the morning from Doctor Akagi, and already submitted a report. Ikari had doubtlessly read it, he didn't have to ask. The Commander would not let such a detail slip.

The question on his part was simply a matter of the protocol of command: written words were impersonal, having the courage to say what you wrote meant something.

"Good," Ikari said. "How is the current situation with the Council?"

"Things are moving as planned," answered Fuyutsuki. "Rather, not moving. They are giving the MOI such a big headache. But I am afraid they will only be able to run interference for us for so long before it becomes tiresome. Once they realize we have no intention of helping them they will drop all pretense."

"It will do."

Fuyutsuki nodded, hoping his superior was right. Politicians were so hard to predict even for someone like Gendo Ikari. Their opinions and dispositions always seemed to change with the wind. It would not be good if they suddenly decided that NERV was not worth having as a friend.

"And the Second Child?" Ikari asked.

"What we expected so far," Fuyutsuki said plainly. "She is much too damaged. Quite frankly, I don't understand the necessity of this test."

"I do," Ikari said. "There would be no need to expose her if she can make it work on her own."

Fuyutsuki nodded. Now he understood. "The weapon we know for sure we can control is better than the weapon we only think we can."

"Yes, precisely," Ikari said. "In hindsight it may seem like a waste of already stretched resources, but Doctor Akagi believed it was worth it in the interests of the pilot's safety. I am rather uninterested on whether or not it was waste at this point. All we can do now is prepare the alternative. As far as Unit-02 is concerned it will have to be enough. And Lazarus?"

"Lieutenant Ibuki assures me of our progress," Fuyutsuki said. "She agrees that speeding the mitosis process further is possible, but advises against it. Having Doctor Akagi take a look at her work seemed to have had both a stimulating effect and acted as a reprimand. I am still more concerned about Ritsuko to be honest."

"I am sure there is no need to worry about her," Ikari said, turning his head slightly, the rest of his body remaining perfectly still. "The options available to her have been made quite clear. We have her cooperation…for the time being," he added in a tone that left no doubt what he would do if the blonde woman disobeyed him again. "Anything else?"

Fuyutsuki hesitated, but he had learned that Ikari had no problem with him voicing his doubts to any plan he might have. In fact, he knew that criticism on his part, to a certain extent, was welcome.

"Yes. Is it wise to allow the Chinese access to the coded information in the Tablet?"

"The Chinese government owes me a couple of favors," the Commander replied. "As long as they do as they are told there will not be a problem. Our schedule will take care of that."

Ikari turned once more to face his fortress through the window. The light, the dome, the forest and lake: his own small world, a world in which he was god. "And I looked and behold, a pale horse. And the name of he that sat on it was Death. And Hell followed with him."

Fuyutsuki was amused. Before Second Impact, scientists like them did not used to think of the world in terms of heaven and hell, or good and evil; science was a gray area—the same science that created the nuclear bomb gave humanity near unlimited energy for more than half a century.

When he was teaching in Kyoto, that was the paradigm Fuyutsuki had believed in. But the years after Second Impact, the horrors they witnessed and experienced caused a fundamental shift in the way they looked at the world. Hell did exist, they were living in it. And if it existed, so did heaven.

"It is good then," the aging Fuyutsuki added, "that we are not in the business of hell. And, I suppose that it is also good that the one who sits on the horse is not a he."

Ikari just nodded gently. After all this time Fuyutsuki could still tell his love for her was as strong as it had always been. But it wasn't serendipity that they held onto the reins of the horse in her place like they did now. It had been arranged like this.

"I have also been meaning to talk to you about Rei," Ikari said, a graver noted echoing in his voice.

This was perhaps the most serious matter of the conversation. Fuyutsuki stepped closer, saying, "I'm listening."

* * *

Looking at the video feed from inside Unit-02, all Misato could see was the front of Asuka's knees and her mane of red hair.

She had been sitting curled up like that for hours now, not moving or saying a word as Ritsuko updated her with her progress—if it could be called that. Misato had once heard it said that the brightest and hottest flame burns out the quickest. That had been the case with Asuka, and she was no closer to making it past the starting indicator than she had been at the beginning of the test, despite Ritsuko's assurances that she could do it.

Watching the girl on the monitor was as frustrating as it was heartbreaking, because even though she had once thought Asuka should learn a little humility and stop treating those around her like garbage, she had not wanted to see her broken up so badly.

"The problem is entirely psycho-somatic," Ritsuko said. She too had been studying the monitor, and now leaned back on her chair. "It's all in her head."

"After what the Angel did to her …" Misato trailed off.

"Regardless. There is only so much we can manipulate the system. But for all we can do with the interface and modifications to both software and hardware, it is Asuka herself who needs to push through. She's the only one that can do it. That's where the problem lies. We can't help her if she can't help herself."

The control room was arranged in two banks of computer terminals, the first along the front wall, just a few feet away from the heavily reinforced glass that overlooked the Eva's test cage, and second further back. It was close to these that Misato was standing, hunched over Ritsuko's chair. While several of the monitors were focused on Asuka, several others showed her telemetry data, relayed in complex graphs that required engineering degrees to properly understand.

The one graph Misato did recognize was Asuka's synchrograph, a jagged mess of lines all jumbled together that seemed to her a rather accurate, if abstract, depiction of the redhead's mental state.

On the top right corner of this was a number: 4.4%: Asuka's synch-ratio, far bellow the minimum required to operate her Eva.

Misato took her eyes from the monitor and looked out of the observation window high above the brightly-lit steel and concrete box that served as a cage for Unit-02. "Do you think she's given up?"

Ritsuko shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Well, I guess it's good that she's much more determined than Shinji."

"They are not all that different, you know," Ritsuko said. "For both of them, their personal problems dictate how they relate to others and, therefore to their Evas."

Misato had a hard time believing that. If they were really, as Ritsuko put it, not all that different, then they wouldn't find it so hard to get along with each other. She had thought, hoped even, that some of their personalities could rub off on the other so that they might find some middle ground, but that had proven impossible. "I don't think they are alike," she said. "Shinji is much more withdrawn than Asuka."

"There are some superficial differences, but they are nothing more than skin deep," Ritsuko said in a flat, rather unemotional tone as if she were talking about something she'd read in a textbook. "Shinji's defense mechanism is to be passive, moving away from people. Asuka is aggressive, actively pushing people away. Both these defenses stem from the same issue--that is the fear of being hurt by others. In that, Asuka is like a cat in a box."

Misato frowned, confused. "How so?"

"If you put a cat in a box, it will be afraid at first, it will wail and scratch and try to get out." Ritsuko hadn't taken her gaze away from the image of the redhead on the screen, but now she see was staring intently, a concentration evident in her brown eyes. "But after a while it will get used to the dark and will grow more comfortable there. It will feel safe and will stay without a struggle. Then, if you open the box and try to take the cat out, it will fight and it will hurt you, lashing out at you until you let it go and close the box. Most people will just let the cat be and eventually it will starve."

An odd sadness came over her voice as she said this. "But someone who cares about the cat will endure the pain and hold on to it, and the cat will come to feel safe with that person and accept them and it will stop lashing out because it will no longer be afraid."

"Are you saying someone needs to take Asuka out of her box?" Misato said. She was interested now; she grabbed a nearby chair and sat down next to the doctor. She didn't really think Asuka was like a cat—animals couldn't choose how they treated people—but Ritsuko, who lived alone except for her cats, knew more about those kinds of behavior than she did.

"No," Ritsuko shook her head. "The Angel ripped the box away from her. And she was left exposed, frightened, and had nobody to feel safe with. That really is the heart of the problem."

Misato thought she understood. She cast a soft glance at the girl on the screen—Asuka looked so small like that. "So you think she's afraid?"

"Honestly, I think she's terrified. That is why she lashes out the way she does. To keep people away from her because in her mind they will only hurt her. That is a natural response: all animals fear pain. And that fear also makes her unable to synch with the Eva. She can't open up to anyone or anything, and that includes Unit-02."

Misato sighed. "Well, if all she needs is someone willing to let her hurt them—"

"It's much more specific than that. And I don't think it's about hurting other people. The willing desires of the human heart are not something that is ever defined in general terms." She crossed her stocking-covered legs. "Desire is hard to understand. We can't test it or measure it. We can only live with it."

"Um." Misato twisted her lips sardonically. "You know, even when you talk about things like these you always sound so detached, like you are talking about a disease or something."

That comment was meant as a slight insult to Ritsuko's regular heartlessness, but her face remained unmoved. If she was offended at all by it, she didn't show it. "I am a scientist not a therapist."

"Nobody will ever argue otherwise."

"The point is, even understanding what causes Asuka's hubris doesn't mean we can fix it," Ritsuko said, ignoring Misato's tone. "That's something only she can do, and that only if she wants to."

"Ritsuko, you are not seriously suggesting that she wants to feel like this." Misato pointed a finger at the screen. "Look at her. How could anyone want to live like that?"

"She hasn't told you to stop yet," Ritsuko replied flatly.

Misato felt hot outrage at that statement, not only because it reaffirmed her view of Ritsuko as being less than humane but also because she was right; Asuka hadn't asked them to stop.

"But I am not saying she wants to, either," Ritsuko said. "However, I think for her the alternative is not worth living for, either. It has to be her way or no way at all. That way she is also like Shinji. They both think it's only themselves that matter—their own hurt. They are unable to look at themselves through the eyes of others. And as they are unable to understand how others see them, they are also unable to understand how to see themselves."

It was rather hypocritical for someone like Ritsuko to talk like this; she was guilty of the same thing she was accusing Shinji and Asuka of. And so was Misato herself.

So, while Ritsuko might be right, and Asuka was responsible for her own misery, Misato owed it to her ward and to do what she could to lessen that feeling—and clearly they had gathered as much data as they could for today, since Ritsuko had gone through nearly her entire checklist. There wasn't much of a point prolonging it.

"I think we should call it a day," Misato said, firmly enough to make it known it wasn't just an opinion. She rose from her chair. "I've got time between shifts. I'm taking her home."

Ritsuko's expression told her she disagreed, but she said nothing. She nodded her assent. Around the control room, the weary faces of the small cadre of operators who had been keeping watch on Asuka's data without a break appeared relieved behind their computers. Once the order was given, termination procedures were initiated, engulfing the room in a flurry of activity.

Groaning with effort, Ritsuko stood up next to Misato and returned the other woman's sympathetic frown with a look that said that her sympathy was not necessary or wanted. That didn't prevent Misato from thinking Ritsuko was pushing herself as recklessly as she was pushing Asuka.

A bad thing for both of them.

* * *

"Ah, Lieutenant, glad you could make it," Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki said as Maya entered his office, his warm tone making Maya all the more uncomfortable.

"With all due respect sir, would you please explain why I was summoned?" Maya said, her voice was merely a whisper. She was tired and angry at being recalled, and failed to hide it. Finally her work had allowed her to find some time to go home, and just when she was getting ready to leave, the Sub-Commander asked her for a meeting.

Fuyutsuki gazed at the young Lieutenant who stood before him, sizing her up. Maya felt as if she would fall asleep while talking to him. Her eyes where only half-open, and she had to blink constantly to keep herself awake. She was aware that to the Sub-Commander she likely resembled a prisoner that had been sleep deprived for weeks. She thought it would be nice if he decided she wasn't up to the task he had selected for her.

"I really must apologize," Fuyutsuki said, sounding like he meant it. "I know you were ready to call it a day, but there is some work that needs to be done. Doctor Akagi is much too preoccupied at the moment. You understand?"

Maya sighed, knowing that her hopes for going home had just gone down the drain. Another night on a hard, cold bunk for poor Maya. "Yes, sir."

"Good." Fuyutsuki slipped his hand in his pocket and came up with a small disk. "This is part of the coding for Unit-00's new programming interface that will go along with the operating system we will be implementing. It needs to be compiled. That will be your task since you are in charge of Lazarus. The Doctor has already written the required algorithms to accomplish this but it needs to be pushed through the MAGI."

Maya's back stiffened. She was suddenly more awake. "Sir, speaking about the new OS, I believe that we should activate Unit-00 using the old command program before switching to the new. We don't even know if Rei can use Unit-00 anymore," she said. "And, honestly, I'm a little concerned about the program. I mean, I trust Dr. Akagi, but … well, I've never seen anything like it. I'm not sure—"

"Lieutenant Ibuki, that code was designed for use with the formatting capabilities of the Eva's computer systems. You shouldn't be concerned with anything other than making the Eva work, by any means."

"The pilot's well-being concerns me as well, sir. I am responsible for Rei's life, and fear that using the new code will hamper her ability to synch with the Eva safely." She didn't mean to lecture him but realized that's how it came out. Her voice became softer as she added, "I just don't think it's safe, sir."

She hoped that the Sub-Commander would agree with her. He nodded, taking in her uneasiness. Maya had always thought he looked like the least likely person to help run an organization such a NERV. His lined faced and slick gray hair gave him a quality of wise age, but he had always seemed more like a kind uncle than a commanding officer to Maya.

And he definitely lacked the air of intimidation Commander Ikari had about him, making him easier to approach. Maya also knew he was always likely to listen.

"We are aware of the pilot's limitations," the Sub-Commander said with an expression of understanding. He was aware of her concern. "If we believed that Rei would be unable to use the Eva, we wouldn't have deemed this appropriate. We are not going about this without giving proper thought to every step we take."

"Yes, sir." Maya stretched out her hand and took the disk.

"Good, then. I should expect some progress for tomorrow. Have a good evening." And with that Fuyutsuki dismissed her.

Maya saluted and left.

The hallways in Central Dogma were empty. The short-haired Lieutenant made her way to the small box-like quarters which had for the last weeks, become home. Maya slid the key into the lock and forced herself to turn it. She did not want to be here. The place was small and bare; there was a bunk on the far corner, and desk, a computer, and a door, which led to a bathroom.

Maya grabbed her coffee flask and noticing that it was empty decided to get it filled. She walked down the hall and took a flight of elevator to the nearest vending machine located just outside the main bridge. She smiled weakly when she saw Junichi Nakayima talking animatedly with Shigeru Aoba and Haruna Ieil, the member of the bridge crew who had taken up Maya's duties and Aoba's girlfriend of the month.

"Hullo, guys." Maya said, with all the cheerfulness she could muster, but not nearly enough. She placed her flask bellow the machine's nozzle intended for cups and swiped her card. It beeped and started pouring.

"Good evening, ma'am," Haruna said. A smile came to her sharp features.

Technically, Maya was her superior officer, but she had never cared much for rank. She waved away the salute. "Don't do that. I'm not in the mood."

"Are you going home, Lieutenant Ibuki?" Nakayima said. He was holding onto a cup of the machine's barely-excusable coffee and a nutritional—or so they were labeled—granola substitute bar that was already more than half eaten. Apparently, she wasn't the only who hadn't gotten a descent meal and that made her feel a little better.

"No. Can't. I have work to do." Maya said, retrieving her flask and taking a swig, recoiling from the bitter taste but thankful for the much needed intake of precious caffeine.

"Come on, Maya. How much longer can you keep going like this?" Aoba sounded concerned. "I mean, you'll work yourself to death."

"THEY will work me to death," Maya said, regretfully shaking her head. "It's not like I'm a fan of ritual suicide. And the Sub-Commander just gave me some more things to do."

Aoba shook his head too, sympathetically. "Maya, Maya, you've got to tell them that you are not a robot."

"It comes with the territory. If you want to be boss, you gotta put in the long hours."

"Spoken like a true workaholic." Nakayima said.

Maya just nodded absently, then she turned to the agent. She hated that uniform, it made all those who wore it seem ... nasty somehow. It was the color: NERV's was a nice, neutral tan and white, cut along military lines but without the rigidity; the MOI's was black, the sort of thing one would see on storm troopers from an age past; ominous.

Nakayima was a nice enough guy, at times he could even be charming and if she weren't—well, if she wasn't herself she might have liked him. Anyway, the uniform didn't suit him at all.

"Don't you have to be somewhere?" Maya asked.

"Me?" Nakayima said, exaggeratedly mocked indignation. "You mean doing something other than vending machine talk? Pushing papers? Oppressing the townspeople?"

"Precisely." Maya said and turned to Aoba and Haruna. Damn, I can see why he likes her, she thought "You guys going out?"

The operator nodded and slid his arm around his girlfriend's waist. "Yep. I am gonna show her that Tokyo-3 is not only Angels and mayhem, well, maybe a little mayhem. You can tag along if…"

Maya cut him off with a hard glance.

Aoba rubbed the back of his neck apologetically with his free hand. "Sorry. I forgot."

"You better go, before you feel the necessity of staying to make me company." Maya said, noticing how Haruna was tugging at Aoba's sleeve.

Aoba nodded, though Maya noticed he did so rather hesitantly. "Good night, Maya," he said.

"Good night, Lieutenant," Haruna said.

Maya waved them goodnight as they walked away, hoping she could go with them if only for the change of scenery that being outside and getting some fresh air would bring. When they were gone she was felt alone with Nakayima, chewing his fake granola bar.

"It seems that everyone's got a life but me." She said without bothering to look at him.

"I bet it is not because you don't want to." Nakayima said.

"No, because I can't. And now, if you excuse me, I wish I had time to stay and chat, but I have work to do."

Nakayima made a face, his narrow features opening in an imitation of curiosity. "Why are you NERV people always looking for excuses to avoid me? I don't have the plague or anything. I swear, I'm up on all my shots."

Maya found that amusing, which she thought was just the effect it was meant to have. Charming alright, she thought.

"We don't need excuses to avoid you," she said, keeping her voice light, and began walking away. "You are MOI. All we need is common sense."

* * *

Saving the world by piloting a gigantic bio-mechanical weapon of mass destruction had never meant that Shinji Ikari was excused from doing household chores. That still hadn't changed.

And since neither Misato nor Asuka was ever inclined to do it themselves, the laundry always fell into that category. He didn't really mind, similarly to how he didn't mind cooking for them; it gave him something to do that didn't require interaction with people. It was one of the few things he could do on his own that had nothing to do with Eva.

Such things had given meaning to everyday life outside Unit-01's entry plug.

Shinji scooped up the scattered bits of clothing from the apartment's three occupants that lay thrown about carelessly into the laundry basket, then picked it up from the bathroom floor and carried it over to the small washroom alcove.

Placing the basket on top of the washing machine, he emptied it out and then began sorting the contents, carefully separating the whites from the colors and stacking them in neat little piles. Shinji had done this so many times it was nearly automatic.

Most of his day had been spent with Rei, watching over her as she slept, the sheets twisted around her, her slender, beautifully pale form curled into a fetal position. He felt no shame in seeing her like that, exposed in a way that would make Asuka rage if she were in the other girl's place. Rei was so passive it was as if her near nudity was the most natural thing in the world, both for her and for Shinji.

It was early afternoon by the time she awoke. Satisfied that she was now feeling better, Shinji decided not to impose on her any longer, and to give her the privacy she didn't care to ask for. Rei would never ask him to leave, he realized, even if she didn't understand why he had stayed with her in the first place. She had said nothing as he bade her goodbye and walked to the door.

He knew not to take offense at her indifference. What would have been weird for other teenagers was just Rei being herself. He seemed to accept that of her with remarkable, not to mention uncharacteristic, ease. Being with her was just--

Shinji shook his head, his mind drifting back to the present, to his chores, and to the fact that he needed to finish with the laundry and get started on dinner.

Asuka, he knew, would snicker derisively and jeer that he was pathetically housebroken. It seemed to bother her that being stuck with the lowliest tasks didn't upset him the way she seemed to think it should. Of course, the redhead had much higher standards, and just because it was beneath her didn't mean it was beneath him.

The fact was that without Shinji doing the very things she made fun of him for none of them would have anything clean to wear, or have dishes to eat on, or have anything to eat that wasn't flash frozen and loaded with chemicals and preservatives. He kept this household running—he suspected even Asuka recognized that. He wouldn't like her nicknaming him "Mama Shinji" for his efforts, but he did feel some pride in what he did.

Not that Shinji wouldn't have welcomed the help. Originally, all three roommates were supposed to divvy up the chores, rotating every week on who did what, when. Misato was too busy working and was hardly ever home, so she was excused. Asuka, in her normal fashion, had thrown a temper tantrum and gotten off the rotation.

Amazing how much she resembled a spoiled little girl when the need suited her. She always got her way, too—it was easier than arguing with her. Just once he wanted to see her lift a finger for someone else. Yeah, like that would ever happen.

Doing the laundry by himself did have its perks, though.

As Shinji reached the bottom of the unsorted pile of clothes he held up a pair of Asuka's well-worn, surprisingly plain cotton panties.

When she had first moved in, the haughty redhead had made a racket about laundry, refusing to let him touch hers. She gave that up once she realized that having someone doing her wash trumped anything he might do. She wasn't thankful; if anything she seemed to think he ought to thank her for the privilege. Eventually it had become another form of teasing, and she would accuse him whether he did anything or not.

Typical Asuka, Shinji thought. She was so ambiguous when it came to her blooming sexuality, flaunting it purposefully and then yelling at anyone that noticed, who mostly happened to be him. Her constant put-downs were a source of shame, making him feel as though he shouldn't even be looking at her. But he couldn't help it.

No matter how fastidious or obnoxious she could be, when consumed by the flames of arousal it was almost impossible for Shinji to think of anything aside from Asuka and her sex.

He brushed his fingers absently on the panties, touching the spot where the flimsy material of the gusset would press up against the haughty redhead when worn. His body responded by stiffening pleasantly at the sensation.

Unlike whatever Asuka might think, this was not a habit he often engaged in. He did try to respect her privacy; he just failed some times. And then he...

Then he heard the apartment door slid open with a hiss.

Immediately a rush of hot blood rose to his cheeks, and he shoved the panties deep in the nearest laundry pile in a flash of panic, embarrassingly aware that Asuka would never stop calling him a pervert if she actually caught him red-handed.

"We are home," he heard Misato call, then hearing more familiar sounds as she and Asuka removed their shoes on the landing.

His cheeks now flushed furiously, he thought it would look suspicious if he didn't come out to greet them; he picked up the basket again and held it in front of him trying to hide his raging erection, and stepped from the tiny washroom into the kitchen.

As he did this he caught a glimpse of Asuka walking around the far side of the heavy wooden table in the middle, headed for the living room doorway.

Before her angry expression and posture could register in his head he asked, "How did it go?"

Asuka stopped on her tracks and turned to him. The blue orbs of her eyes seemed to be on fire. "How do you think, stupid?" she said, snarling. "I can't even make it go! I can't do anything!"

"I—I don't…" Shinji stammered, completely at a loss. "You did your best, didn't you?"

The words had come out just as soon as he had thought them, and the suddenness of it left him unable to stop himself. He had to say something … at that moment there didn't seem to be anything more important in the entire world.

"My best?" Asuka said, her face was furious, her fists clenched. "MY BEST IS NOTHING!"

Shinji swallowed uncomfortably, his throat suddenly very dry; his mind seized up, as if it simply could not shift into a higher gear to keep up with her anger.

The fanciful image he carried in his mind never lasted when faced with the harsh reality. She wasn't and would never be anything he wished her to be. His imagining of her was just a selfish desire, not affection. Just like his concern.

Asuka knew it. He could see the disgust on her face—how dare he ask such a stupid question? How dare he pretend that he cared?

"Don't yell at him, Asuka," Misato said as she came into the kitchen. She leaned on the door frame, wrapping her arms around herself. Though her voice was serious there was no anger in it. "It's not his fault."

"He can defend himself!" Asuka bellowed, quickly rounding on her—a reprieve for which Shinji was grateful. "And I'll yell at him if I want to!"

"He's just trying to help," Misato explained calmly, though she wasn't looking at the redhead.

"I don't want his help! I don't want yours! I'm so sick of this!"

Asuka turned sharply on her pink heels, her short skirt flaring up as she did so, and stormed off loudly. Her bedroom door was heard slamming shut violently seconds later.

It was a sign of how low their relationship had come, Shinji thought sadly, that her outburst didn't surprise him in the slightest. She had always been hot-tempered, but ever since coming out of the hospital she had become just plain bitter. Given what happened to her, perhaps it was understandable.

What the Angel had done.

Again Shinji felt the now-familiar twinge of guilt.

If anyone could relate it was him, having had his own close encounters on several occasions. But how could he, an awkward boy just over fourteen who couldn't even confront his own issues, help someone as stout-hearted as Asuka, who didn't know the meaning of compassion or sympathy and would just as soon throw them back in his face?

He was afraid of her, afraid of coming that little bit closer that would make all of her insults really hurt. But if he kept his distance maybe things would go back to the way they were before. He didn't feel like he had a choice.

Shinji shook his head dejectedly. And as he turned to Misato he was confronted by another, more immediate problem.

"Um..."

It was the first time in a long while the two of them were left alone. They stood there perfectly still, neither saying a word nor looking at the other.

Shinji struggled to get a hold of himself, to push Asuka back far enough in his mind so that he could bring out the things he wanted to say. For someone who had made it a character trait to apologize compulsively, it seemed such a difficult thing to do now—if only because he was very aware of how badly and purposefully he had cut her.

Her eyes were focused on the table, almost like she was afraid. He didn't deserve to be looked after and cared for by someone like her, someone to whom he meant so much. Now more than at any other moment he hated what he had done.

But the words for everything he wanted to say wouldn't come.

Misato sighed and turned.

"Don't mind her," she said softly. "Asuka's had a rough day. You know how she gets."

Misato followed the same path as the redhead around the table into the living room, disappearing momentarily from sight, then returned holding her red jacket. Shinji hadn't even noticed that she was not wearing it until now, and he found that strange because it had become as much a part of his mental image of her as Rei's uniform and Asuka's neural connectors.

She then went to use the bathroom, noticing the partially done laundry stacked on top of the washing machine before closing the door behind her. Shinji didn't get the sense she was trying to avoid him; he was the one who couldn't find a convenient opening.

It was hard. He knew he wanted to apologize, but didn't quite know how to take back all the awful things he'd already said.

When Misato stepped back into the landing and began putting on her shoes, Shinji could remain silent no longer. He went along with her, now holding onto the sides of the laundry basket so tightly it hurt.

"You aren't staying for dinner?" he said cautiously.

"Not tonight," Misato said, running a finger along the rim of her left boot to fit it properly, she had not undone her laces. Then she did the other one. "I've got double shift. Hey--" she stopped and for a second seemed taken aback and straightened up. "You are talking to me now?"

Shinji was so ashamed of himself he could not keep his pale blue eyes focused on her; instead he dropped his gaze into the basket. "I—I talked to Rei."

"Uh?"

"And she said," he continued, "that if I won't do anything because I am afraid, then I shouldn't be, because then I have nothing else worth losing."

Misato didn't say anything.

Shinji kept his eyes down, wanting to avoid looking up and see the look on her face that would tell him he had better come up with something else if he wanted to be forgiven. She didn't have to forgive him at all; he wouldn't blame her if she never did. "I'm sorry, Misato."

"So Rei said that, uh?" Misato said finally.

Shinji nodded, expecting her to berate him savagely like Asuka did.

But then, Misato laughed. A soft, pleasant laugh, and it so surprised him that he looked up to find a faint smile on her pretty face.

"Yeah," she said. "That does sound like something she would say. It's spooky how she comes up with stuff like that. In a good way, really."

"Misato …" Shinji was no longer certain she had heard his apology. "I said I'm so--"

She held up her hand and he fell quiet.

"Don't. You don't have to say you're sorry for what you feel. You were right before. I can't make you pilot Eva—I don't want to make you. That's your choice. All I want is for you to know that your choices affect everyone around you."

Shinji took in those words with a gentle nod and bowed his head. Misato wasn't trying to sermonize him or rub in the fact that he had been wrong like he'd feared; it was just sincere advice. The apprehension that had surrounded all previous thoughts of talking to his guardian was replaced by am affectionate feeling of warmth.

Even if he didn't think he deserved, he got the feeling she understood.

"Well, I really should be going," Misato said, an upbeat tone in her voice that hadn't been there before. "Listen, make sure Asuka gets something to eat, okay? Don't tell her I said that. She won't like it. She isn't—her habits are not very healthy if you don't nag her." She gave him a thumbs-up. "So that's your mission for tonight, got it?"

"Easier said than done," Shinji replied gloomily. "Sounds like a suicide mission."

Misato smiled cautiously. "It's got to be easier than catching an Angel falling from orbit, right?" She waved him off, tucked her jacket underneath an arm, and left the apartment.

Shinji saw her out the door still holding the laundry basket tightly, its weight reminding him that despite everything there was still ordinary life to be had—that was if Asuka didn't slit his throat for asking if she wanted beef or chicken for dinner.

Sighing heavily, he determined not to make Asuka's life any harder. She had been at NERV all day, and she hated the cafeteria food. Shinji would bet his S-DAT she was hungry.

But he couldn't bring himself to bother her with such a trivial thing as asking what she wanted to eat. She probably wouldn't appreciate it very much and might not even want whatever he made regardless, but he could do nothing else for her. Yes, he'd make her dinner, something he knew she'd like, and he'd leave it on the table for her.

Ready whenever she was.

* * *

After the heated exchange with her roommates, Asuka lay on her bed for a long time hugging her pillow and staring at the door, wishing that for once Shinji had been able to keep from getting on her nerves. A part of her wanted it to open, to reveal him standing on the other side; the same part that wanted him come and take her shoulders and tell her that he would be there; the same part of herself that she absolutely hated.

But she didn't believe that getting whatever she might want from Shinji was a real possibility; even after she had kissed him he had just stood there flabbergasted. She had waited for him, eyes almost watering from the emotions she had repressed for so long, mouth dry, heart pounding uncontrollably in her chest. She had waited but he didn't move, didn't do anything.

When his gaze dropped to the floor between her feet she had started yelling at him, rushing to the bathroom and making a show of rinsing the taste out of her mouth.

That was the first time Asuka thought she should hate him. He had abandoned her, leaving her to wallow in her own miserable loneliness, just like he had again now. Like her own mother had; like Kaji; like Unit-02 and everything else that had made her feel special and wanted.

But how could Shinji, who of all people should know what it felt like, keep doing that to her?

It hurt so badly, she had to admit regardless of her pride, to not even be able to get stupid Shinji to pay attention to her. Or to show any sign that she might be something to him other than the awful redhead he was forced to share an apartment with. She hated Shinji for ignoring her, but oddly she found that she didn't want to hate him. Rather, she wanted him to ease her lonely existence, to at least try. If he could do that she would find it within herself to forgive him. Just a little.

And just enough to perhaps allow something else to fill her heart.

But Shinji had Wonder Girl to care about.

That was the last straw. The feelings of dejection and misery that had tormented her throughout Unit-02's activation had become a part of her life for so long she had almost come to accept them as inevitable, but knowing that Shinji had consciously chosen a mindless porcelain doll instead of her was more than Asuka could stand.

She tugged at her pillow, pulling it slightly from underneath her head so she could more fully wrap her arms around it, and screwed her blue eyes shut. Feeling utterly pathetic, she fought the overwhelming urge to cry.

* * *

Misato Katsuragi wrapped her arms around herself in a vain attempt to keep warm. The room was dark and very cold--freezing, sub-zero cold produced by the liquid nitrogen used to cool down the MAGI's mainframe. She sat on the floor, leaning against a wall, knees drawn up to her chest, her breath condensed in front of her nose, giving her something to amuse herself with while Hyuga finished wiring the MAGI to his laptop.

She hadn't really wanted to get him into this, but she was in need of his expertise with computers and decryption. She had managed to pull some information, thanks to the codes left by Kaji, but she had hit a brick wall lately. Hyuga had theorized that it was probably due to the encryption keys having been changed recently.

Unfortunately, that meant they would have to hack MAGI's firewall instead of simply by-passing it.

"I apologize for getting you into this," Misato said.

Hyuga turned and pulled at the connection cables he presently held. "No problem. At least you were nice enough to ask."

Misato smiled innocently. "I guess I could have pulled a gun on you if you refused."

Hyuga plugged the cables to some sort of terminal, and then plugged the terminal to his computer. He set the laptop on the floor and sat besides the Major.

"I would have done it myself, but I'm not that good of a hacker. This could get you into trouble," Misato said, leaning over Hyuga's shoulder as he began typing commands on his keyboard. He could feel her breath on the back of his neck.

"I would never say no to a friend," Hyuga said.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Hyuga replied, without taking his eyes off the computer screen. "All right. I got through the firewall. We should be able to do our business and get out before MAGI can pinpoint the security breach. Do you have a disk or do you want me to download it to my computer hard drive?"

"No. It wouldn't be good for you to get caught with this stuff." Misato reached into her pocket and produced a disk, which she handed to Hyuga. The operator took it, inserted it into his laptop and began copying the files Misato had requested.

"My question to you, if I may, is why are YOU doing it?" he asked, turning away from the computer to look at Misato, who had leaned back after giving him the disk. "If the Commander finds out, the consequences will be…"

Misato cut him short. "I know, but I have to find the truth," she said.

"But is it worth it?" Hyuga asked, with genuine concern.

"The truth will set you free, Hyuga," Misato said in a soft voice. Once again she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, closing her eyes, since she no longer felt like looking at the darkened world around her. "The truth will set you free."

He said nothing as he turned back to the the glow of the laptop's bright LCD screen. Misato let him go. As talkative was she was there was no point in harassing him when he was trying to work, and she felt that anything she might say would sound like trying to justify what she was doing. What she was getting him to do for her.

For the next few minutes there was only the quiet hum of machinery and the tapping on keys on a keyboard. And then she heard ...

The hairs stood up on the back of her neck for reasons completely unrelated to the cold. "Did you hear that?" she whispered.

Hyuga's head came up and he looked around. "No. What?"

"Keystrokes," Misato said, rolling quietly onto her knees.

"Major ..." Hyuga shifted his sitting posture sideways, looking at her like she was going crazy. "I'm typing."

Misato shook her head. "Not you. Much fainter."

She got to her feet, and reached into her jacket for her gun.

"Major!" Hyuga said as loudly as someone who was trying to whisper could. Misato moved around him into the dark. "Major, if you think we've been caught we need to get out of here."

"If we'd been caught we'd know it already," Misato said. "Stay put and don't make any noise."

In the darkness and the cold, Misato could feel her heart pounding in her chest with incredible clarity. Blind people often said that loosing sight merely enhanced other senses to near superhuman levels. She wondered if that's what it was. The little pinpricks of red diodes from the computers rose like pedestals of stars around her. A human, man-made galaxy among the black void.

Her gun was freezing in her hands, her breath turning into a mist in front of her. She made to the opposite end of the room, looking around. Nothing, just more computers. And something on the floor.

A ladder.

Misato had been aware that the computer towers extended both above and bellow the floor, but she had never considered that this room might have more than one floor. She was beginning to feel increasingly foolish—even if what she heard were keystrokes, this floor and empty and nobody could have gone down the ladder without her and Hyuga noticing. Curiosity, however, got the better of her.

The metal rungs on the ladder were cold. She winced at the touch while still holding her gun on her right hand. She had no problem descending with just her feet and one hand.

The room bellow was much what she expected, towers of equipment, red diodes, and humming. But she could tell by the way the light seemed to extend into infinity that this level was actually very much larger than the one above. Misato stood at the foot of the ladder, looking around. Concentrating on her hearing, she tried to penetrate the darkness, hoping to pick up the faint noise again.

God, she felt stupid.

This place was a maze—level built on level. Like everything Misato thought she knew about NERV, she had only scratched the surface. In the cold and the dark she found that a terrifying thought.

* * *

To be continued …


	3. Hatred

Notes: Well, this took a lot longer than originally anticipated. It doesn't help that part of it have been written for over a year--the best parts too. Thanks go to Big D and Jimmy (and maybe Mike but I don't know yet :p ). Anyway, I think this takes care of most of the rewrite because the following chapters are not as bad as the first three. There are still things I'm not happy about but I'm always doing that. Review if you like. Who knows, maybe I'll actually finish the story.

Revised: August 2009

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**Evangelion Genocide: Extended**

"**Hell is ... other people." --Jean Paul Sartre.**

**Genocide 0:03 / Hatred**

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Misato Katsuragi got home feeling more dead than alive, which lately seemed to be the rule rather than the exception.

She couldn't believe there had been a time when she had actually liked her job--when her sense of duty had pushed her through countless all-nighters without thinking of it as a chore. Right now, though, the warm glow of idealism long snuffed out, she wanted nothing more than to slump down on her bed and sleep. It was a luxury she rarely had, and one of the very few things she still managed to enjoy.

As soon as she entered the apartment she heard the whispering of the TV. Voices too soft and muted to make out properly, almost like ghostly whispers in the back of her head. She had told the children not to leave the TV on when they weren't watching—it was a waste of energy and did not help with the power bill—but things had been so strained lately that she didn't blame them if they disobeyed such an unimportant rule.

Closing the door behind her, Misato took off her shoes on the landing, absently rubbing her tired feet, and flicked on the kitchen light to see where she was headed, She walked into the living room and stopped on her tracks.

To her surprise, she found Asuka lying on her belly in front of the TV set, resting her chin on her hands, completely oblivious to Misato's entrance. In the flickering lights of the gloving tube Misato could see a deeply thoughtful expression on her young face.

Misato didn't want to startle the girl. She thought about simply slipping quietly to her bedroom, but there was something ...

Ever since Asuka came out of the hospital Misato had been too busy to talk to her, to see how she was doing; how she was coping. They rarely saw each other, unintentionally through her odd schedule or maybe because they were subconsciously trying to avoid one another. It didn't matter why, not really.

Either way, she felt guilt that she couldn't dedicate as much time to the girl as she deserved, especially with all that was going on in her life. Like Shinji, at the tender age of fourteen, Asuka had already endured more pain and hurt than most people did in a whole lifetime. Not a day went by that Misato didn't feel sorry for them.

And after being the one who had talked Asuka into coming home, she felt a particular sense of responsibility to her. The young German girl was her ward, yes, and that made it obligatory that she'd be concerned for her well-being. But what she felt was more than a obligation. More like the sort of duty she had once felt for her job. She owed Asuka her concern as someone close to her--the only thing she now that approached what others might call family.

Misato cleared her throat, hoping the noise would alert Asuka to her presence, and finally said, "It's late, Asuka. What are you doing up?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Asuka replied in a harsh whisper. She didn't move a muscle; her eyes were still on the screen. "I'm watching a show."

"Go to bed," Misato said, hoping to sound motherly rather than overbearing. "You have a very important test tomorrow. And this time you are also going to school. I know you don't care about it, but you are not playing hookie again. You aren't sick."

Asuka said nothing—she just stared blankly at the TV.

Misato looked at her, trying to see how she'd react then sighed, not sure if the redhead had heard her. "Asuka?"

"What?" Asuka yelled back, her bare shoulders tensed visibly. It was as if just talking with Misato caused her anger to rise beyond control.

"I..." Misato began, but had problems finding the right words. She couldn't treat Asuka like a child, even if she thought she very much was a child. Unlike Shinji, Asuka was so haughty it prohibited any sympathy she might be willing offer. But she had to say something. She had to let her know that she didn't have to carry the burden of being an Eva pilot and a teenager all alone.

"If you want me too," Misato finally managed, "I can talk with Ritsuko and have her stop the tests. Just for a little while. Until you feel up to it again."

There a long moment of silence.

"Why?" Asuka asked simply, her face remaining stony, something hollow sounding in her usual shrill voice. Like she didn't even understand what Misato was offering.

Misato thought about what Ritsuko had said--about Asuka being a like a cat. She hadn't really wanted to believe someone like Ritsuko would know anything about a person's feelings, especially complex ones like a young girl's, but she had to admit she was right. Asuka might not be afraid, but she had been left alone and abandoned inside her little box for so long that she even forgotten what compassion sounded like. Partly, it was Misato's own fault.

"I...don't think the tests are good for you," Misato replied quietly. "I think you could use a break."

"Since when have you been concerned with what is good for me?" Asuka asked, sarcastically. She turned her head slightly so that she could look at Misato out of the corner of her eye, as if measuring her response. Her blue eyes glinted in the glow of the television--icy jewels hard enough to cut diamonds.

"I've always been concerned." Misato said, trying not to let her guilt come across in her words.

Asuka looked her over, eyes moving up and down intently, her feet crossed at the ankles swinging back and forth ever so gently in the air. Then a look of distaste came over her young features, as if she were holding something she didn't like in her mouth. "Only because it's part of your job." She narrowed her eyes. "And only when it's convenient to you."

It hurt to realize she was right. It hurt all the more because Misato would have liked to believe that deep down inside she did care, but the short moments she shared with her ward, when she saw her really early in the morning as she was getting ready for school or later at night simply never allowed her to show it.

But she did care, though perhaps she didn't show it as she should. It was just so hard to care for someone like her ... she didn't make it easy.

"That's not true, Asuka," Misato said honestly, feeling the need to defend herself from the redhead's statements.

"I suppose it's not true, even though you never came to see me in the hospital," Asuka said harshly, looking away from Misato and fixed her gaze back on the television. "I suppose it's not true even though you never talk to me. Everything you need to know about me is in my file, right?"

Something heavy hit Misato in the chest. "It's not...like that. I was just busy. Before. So much happened in so little time, I just never got around to it."

"I suppose I just wasn't very convenient."

"Asuka..." The Major shook her head. "You can't really believe that."

"That's fine," Asuka said. "I don't want you to be concerned for me, just don't say that it isn't true. Don't lie to me. I'm grown up now. I can deal with the truth."

"I was concerned, but..." Misato began, but the right words would not come. How could she justify having abandoned her to Asuka when she couldn't even justify it to herself? "Asuka, you are grown up. But you have to understand that some times we can't do the things we wish we could."

"You don't even believe that. If you are concerned—and I'm not saying I think you are—then it's only because it makes you feel better about yourself," Asuka added. "It makes you feel like a less horrible person. Like the idiot. It has nothing to do with me."

Misato fell silent and just stared at her, stunned at having her words thrown back in her face and knowing all the while that nothing she was being told was wholly untrue.

Asuka appeared indifferent to the argument, for her voice didn't betray a single hint of emotion, not even the anger Misato thought she should rightfully feel.

Never being the reserved type, the redhead seemed to have no more things to say, convinced that she was right and not amount of argument would change her mind. While she certainly had a talent for speaking her mind, that usually meant she was also brutally honest and unabashed when dealing with others. She was good at that. And it pushed people away. People who would otherwise care about her very much.

But maybe, Misato thought, her concern for Asuka _was_ merely out of convenience. That could be the case with someone like her, because she obviously didn't care if Misato was concerned or not. To Asuka it was just selfishness. It was strange to think that she could have missed the point the her ward had just made: that it made her feel like a less horrible person.

Misato could not deny that it did. Asuka had every right to accuse her of being selfish, because that was exactly what she was doing—doing things out of self-interest, like being concerned for someone only when that someone affected her.

Should that not be true, she would have gone to see Asuka in the hospital when she was at her lowest and needed comforting more. Should that not be true, she would gone to her now, where she lay in frnt of the television, and put her arms around her and hugged her because she wanted her to know she was there for her.

"It has everything to do with you because ..." Misato tried, and again could not finish that sentence. She dropped her head. "Then I guess I can't make you change your mind. I know I can't reach you. But I hope you do realize that, despite everything, there are still people around you. Now. And none of them want to see you suffer."

"Those people can go to hell."

Misato wondered what else she had expected of the German girl. But the words still hurtful, made even more so by the serious tone that indicated Asuka was being sincere. That she really did want to be left absolutely, utterly alone. "I'm sorry that's how you see it. I really am, Asuka."

Asuka said nothing, her head dropping slightly, her eyes fixed on the television. From that point on, Misato knew she meant to ignore her. She sighed in resignation.

"Good night, Asuka," she murmured, but tried to keep from sounding defeated. "Go to bed—that's an order from your superior officer."

After watching Asuka snatch up the remote to turn off the television and head towards her room, fairly certain the girl just despised her, Misato turned around and locked herself in her room. She collapsed on her bed exhausted, too tired to bother removing her clothes, and waited for the oblivion of sleep to envelop her.

* * *

She remembered the dirty, checkered tiled floor and filthy bed but not much else.

The air was heavy, loaded with dust and the smell of decay as if nobody had been here in a long time. There was almost no light, only enough to see the faint outlines of worn-out, rusted medical equipment that did not seem to have been used in a long, long time.

Dead things, dead reminders of a life lost.

She didn't know how she'd come to end up here. All she remembered was pain, and voices and an awful feeling of fingers on her bare skin.

Rei Ayanami stood in the middle of the room, her ghostly white flesh almost glowing in the darkness. She was naked, but she didn't feel cold. She didn't feel anything, just dead.

There was something missing. She didn't know what it was, but something wasn't where it was supposed to be in her chest.

Like she had no heart.

Where was she? Why was this place so familiar?

She had never been here before, and yet she felt like she had always been here, always living in the dark, always naked.

A dream?

Memory?

As she approached the bed, the soft shuffling of her feet filled the room. The sheets were dingy; there were dried blood stains on the yellowing material. Her blood? Softly, she pressed her hand on the sheets. They were warm, pleasant to the touch. Was this her bed? Her past?

No, not hers--Rei Ayanami's.

"Rei, what are you doing?"

Rei turned to the sound of the familiar voice and found Doctor Ritsuko Akagi standing where she had been before, holding a flashlight. She couldn't see the woman's face, only a shock of her blonde hair and white lab coat. The harsh light hurt her eyes and so she looked away.

"How did you get here?" the Doctor repeated.

"I do not know," Rei said honestly. "It felt like I was walking in my sleep."

"I said you could take a break. That wasn't permission to wander off," the blond doctor said sternly. "This is a big place, it would incredibly easy to get lost forever if you don't know your way out, or nobody knows where you are."

Rei nodded her head slightly. "I am sorry to have worried you, Doctor Akagi."

Doctor Akagi turned around.

"I wasn't worried at all." She made a motion with her hand, a signal to Rei that she was supposed to follow. "Come on."

Rei followed her obediently, falling in step behind her as she led the way out of the darkened room and into a pitch-black hallway illuminated only by the flashlight and a bright doorway at the very end. The damp air clung to her as sweat, the gloom entered her pores like some kind of virus. Shapes appeared along the walls: doors, broken equipment, pipes, shards of glass, cardboard boxes, medical supplies.

The only sound was the clicking of Ritsuko's heels, the rustling of her coat, and Rei's quiet padding on the tiles.

"Familiar, isn't it?" Doctor Akagi said, keeping her gaze straight ahead. Rei could only see a flash of yellow hair along the silhouette of her head.

"What is this place, Doctor Akagi?" Rei asked, unable to hold her curiosity. "I have never been here before, and yet there is something ... I do not know what to call it."

"To you, this place means nothing," Doctor Akagi answered coolly. "This is where she grew up. This was her world for a long time."

Rei felt a sudden pang of sadness. "In the dark?" she said.

"We used to have lighting when it was still in use. Of course we wouldn't have raised her in the dark. That would have made for a very badly adjusted individual," she added. "But what do you care, you didn't grow up here. You came from a glass tube."

Rei didn't know what to feel—how to feel. Only that she felt something odd and empty once again on that familiar spot inside her chest.

"She grew up?"

Ritsuko Akagi stopped, but did not turn. Rei stopped too, and stood there, red eyes carefully examining the woman in front of her. The doctor didn't seem quite able to put her thoughts into words. Rei didn't mean to trouble her. Her question had not been intended to do that, but it seemed to have regardless.

"Rei," finally Doctor Akagi said, "for someone who is very intelligent you sure ask a lot of dumb questions."

A sudden cold draft of air touched her skin, making her shiver. "Do you hate me, Doctor Akagi?"

The doctor sighed, turning partially back towards Rei. It was impossible to see the expression on her face and Rei knew it was the same with her own face, which was good because she didn't know what expression to make.

"Hate is a strong word, Rei. It is meant to hurt. People don't seem to understand now. You shouldn't use it unless you mean it—and even if you do there are always other ways to say it without being so blunt." She paused. "That said, I don't hate who you are, I hate what you are. What you represent."

So this was what being hated felt like, Rei thought. It was such a familiar thing. Like she had lived with it for a long time.

Without knowing why she dropped her gaze to the floor.

"You know, I destroyed the Dummy System for the same reason," Doctor Akagi said bitterly. Her voice had a strange hardness to it. "Soulless things shouldn't hold the same value as human beings. You were no different than those things until you were born. Then everything changed and you became who you are."

"I am soulless?" In the dark, even Rei's soft whisper seemed carry on forever.

"No, weren't you paying attention?" Doctor Akagi admonished her. "I said everything changed for you. You have a soul. But Angels have souls—would you call them human?"

Rei did not offer an answer, though in her heart she already knew what it was supposed to be.

"Don't flatter yourself by pretending to be more than you were created as, Rei. Understanding is not your purpose. You may feel better, but in the end it will only lead you to misery." Doctor Akagi turned back, and resumed walking down the hallway behind the beam of light from her flashlight, her heels once again clicking ominously as she went. "Now, enough with the questions. To be honest, the answers have absolutely no relevance for you. We still have experiments to run."

Rei followed her quietly, every footstep feeling as heavy as her heart. This was her lot, she knew, the only reason for her existence. She had to fulfill her purpose or she would be discarded, and whether she liked it or not was irrelevant. Still, as she walked naked on the cold floor, she found that she did not want to go back.

She did not want to be hated anymore.

* * *

Shinji hesitated a moment before entering the the bustling classroom. Asuka bumped into him and gave an annoyed huff. "Out of the way, idiot!"

She pushed past, not waiting for him to move, and went to meet Hikari, who was standing near the front of the class as usual. Like she usually did, the redhead attracted quite a few of the other girls for whom simply to be seen with her would be a social boost, and the lustful stares and hushed whispers of several boys.

Shinji sighed and trundled to his desk.

Kensuke, occupying the desk next to his, looked up from what he had been typing at his computer station as he approached, grumbling dejectedly about all the attention Eva pilots got wherever they went. Shinji could agree that seemed to be the case some times, but only with Asuka as he and Rei never got any attention—and even if he did, he would try to avoid it.

His friend had never really understood what it was like, not even when one of them had gotten mauled by the Eva—by, Shinji reminded himself, him. He would probably not be able to look Toji in the eyes if they ever met again.

As Shinji set his book bag down on his own desk he looked around the room and quickly spotted Rei's blue mane. She was sitting by the window, her red eyes lost in the landscape beyond and far away from the noise and the crowd, an elbow propped up on the desk, her chin resting on a white hand.

She was always like this in class; never speaking unless spoken to; never asking a question of clarification on homework or tests or anything.

Looking at Rei, Shinji remembered what Misato had told him the day before, the same thing that had been bothering him ever since and almost kept him from getting any sleep but that he had managed to put in the back of his mind thanks to the morning routine and having to deal with Asuka's usual hostility.

He could not resist the urge to approach her—he had to say something to reassure her, despite being sure Rei didn't need it and that he would only be making himself feel better. In this sense, their relationship was decidedly one sided.

Shinji had known all along that Rei activating Unit-00 was compounded with him activating Unit-01. Asuka's Unit-02 was already active, though not fully-functional. That left the other two Evas. Misato had told him that he'd be there when it happened, probably because she knew he was concerned, but he hadn't considered they would do the activations back-to-back.

But that was the decision. Resource conservation, Misato had called it.

Rei didn't take her gaze from the window as he came to stand besides her desk and looked down on her, clenching his hands nervously the way he always did when something made him feel uncomfortable. He knew despite her indifference that her thoughts were not entirely elsewhere even if she did appear that way.

"Rei?"

"What is it?" she said softly, still not moving a muscle.

Any other person would have seemed rude. But Rei's attitude was something he had come to expect, and accept in a way. Regardless of anything he might say, and whether she disagreed with him or not, she would not make him feel as though he was completely wrong--she would not judge him in the same way he didn't judge her. It was that passivity which made her so approachable.

Which made him glad he had her; Asuka wouldn't listen, and if she did would yell; Misato would listen then try to talk him out of or into something; Rei just listened, nothing more.

"Um," Shinji struggled for a second to find the right thing to say, then it came to him. He should just be honest because Rei would want him to and because she would be honest with him. "Misato said today's the day. I mean, Unit-00 is ready. That means I'll be going back into Unit-01 as well."

For a second there was no reaction, and Shinji started wondering if he had actually said of that out loud. In some form or another, those thoughts had been running around his head so persistently that he couldn't be sure. Being worried about Rei seemed to have become like being worried about the weather: it happened a lot and without him realizing he was doing it.

"Is that so?" Rei sounded completely uninterested when she finally responded, her voice just a whisper. "Yes, I believe Doctor Akagi mentioned something about the current activation test being scheduled for today."

Shinji nodded. "Yeah, Asuka too. The three of us will be in our Evas today. It's gonna be busy, that's for sure."

"I suppose it will be," Rei said plainly. "I do not think the start-up sequences for all three would be scheduled on the same day. The available personnel might not be able to cope."

It was just like her to worry about personnel at a time like this. Detachment did not even begin to describe it.

Shinji wasn't expecting her to be concerned for herself—that would be rather unlike her, and would probably be more cause for concern than the test itself. After all, he was the worrywart. But he had, however, expected some reaction, something to show she understood the seriousness of the situation, if only to ease his own fears about the whole thing.

Rei could be a little too brave for the sake of everyone around her.

"Are you … are you scared?" Shinji asked, hoping his own apprehension didn't show in his voice. He only partially succeeded, but if Rei noticed anything she didn't let on.

"No," Rei said flatly. "Why should I be?"

"Well, it's the first time," Shinji said. He was embarrassingly aware that it sounded childish considering all they'd been through. "It'd be natural to be afraid."

"Are you afraid?" she asked absently.

Shinji gulped stiffly. "You mean about you?" he said. "Yeah, of course I'm worried. You've never done this before and the last time ..." He would rather not think about it. "But don't worry, I'll be there if anything happens."

"Like what?"

Like you dying, he wanted desperately to say, the memory of her sacrifice still too fresh in his mind. He caught himself. Rei might not be afraid—though he was fearful enough for the both of them—but she didn't need him saying like that. "Like well, you know, something."

"There is nothing to fear from 'something'." The word sounded weird when she said it. "You should be more specific."

Shinji let his shoulder sag along with his eyes. "I ... can't. Maybe I'm just in denial. I just don't want anything to happen to you."

"I know," Rei said flatly. "You wish to protect me."

Shinji nodded.

"And who will protect her?" Rei turned her head ever so slightly.

Shinji followed her gaze—she was looking at Asuka. The redhead turned up her nose haughtily and twisted away when she realized they were both watching her, continuing to chat with the entourage of girls gathered around her. She sat on her desk like a queen on her throne, her feet up on the seat of her chair, one hand grabbing the edge of the desk, the other playing with a lock of her hair. Glossy red, her neural connectors stood out vividly.

There was no doubt that she had once again become an idol to their classmates, but Shinji knew better. Unlike them, he had seen her hit bottom.

"Asuka doesn't want anybody to protect her," Shinji said sullenly, turning his head back to Rei. "It's you I'm really worried about."

He had no choice—how could he worry about Asuka when she wouldn't even allow him to do that for her? Every time he had expressed his concern she had thrown it back at him with vile and hurtful words. She didn't have to really believe he was being sincere, which for some reason she never thought he was, or feel that he was pitying her. But at least she could accept that he was trying to do something nice for her to make her feel better.

For all her hostility, Asuka did not deserve to be hurt any more than Rei did. Shinji wished he could be there for her, though he knew it was impossible because he was so hopelessly afraid of her. Rei was much easier to deal with; she didn't fight him every step of the way.

That, Shinji had long come to realize, said as much about himself as it did about Asuka. He had already accepted the fact that he was a coward when it came to the redhead.

"I do not worry," Rei said quietly. "Even the worst that could happen would not be so bad. Perhaps it would be for others, but not for myself."

Shinji couldn't argue with her on that, he just wished she cared as much for her own life as he did—maybe then she wouldn't be so eager to put it on the line for his father. It was an odd feeling to know what the person you worried so much about didn't care that you did. Rei Ayanami was always like that. She would do anything if his father ordered it.

And that bothered Shinji immensely.

Up near the front, Asuka was laughing—that high pitched laugh calculated to attract attention. Hikari too was smiling, happy to enjoy whatever joke she was sharing with her friend. Other girls look at her in admiration, even gratitude for being allowed in Asuka's circle.

Shinji felt the tightness in his chest ease. They hardly ever spoke now—Shinji wouldn't know what to say anyway—but slowly Asuka was beginning to come out of her shell more and more. When she had first left the hospital she hardly spent any time out of her room, only to eat or use that bathroom. She had isolated herself from everyone by her own choosing, perhaps feeling embarrassed at what had happened to her.

But now Asuka was coming back to her old self, especially around Hikari. Shinji was very glad about that, though it did not affect the icy relationship he had with her. Just seeing Asuka find some measure of happiness, however small, felt good.

He didn't know why, but Shinji thought it would have been just as good to have Rei be more like Asuka. To have her laugh a little.

"Why are you smiling?"

Shinji shook his head, snapping back to reality. He returned his attention to Rei, realizing he had been staring at Asuka, whatever expression had been on his face vanished. "Excuse me?"

"You were smiling," Rei said. "Why?"

Had he? Shinji had not even noticed. "It's nothing. I just … I was thinking of something that made me feel good."

"I see."

Shinji wasn't sure what she meant by that. Maybe had misunderstood the gesture, as she was not quite adept at human interaction, and even less adept with feelings. But the possibility that he might have been smiling over Asuka felt too weird so Shinji changed subjects. "So … listen, Rei, at least promise me you'll look after yourself."

"My fate is in the hands of other people," Rei said. "I have accepted that. You should as well. Doing anything else would just be painful."

Shinji felt a taste of bitterness in his mouth. Sadly, he knew exactly whom she meant by 'other people.' But his father didn't care for her any more than he cared for him. He didn't think Rei was naïve enough to believe he did. If nothing else, the slight hint of resignation in her voice was proof.

Rei knew she was being used.

There was no time for Shinji to discuss his feelings about his father. The bell suddenly rang, followed immediately by Hikari's call for the students to go back to their desks. The girls around Asuka scattered, chatting until the very last moment. The redhead peered over her shoulder—either at him or at Rei, Shinji couldn't tell—then again turned away and took her seat. For a second he thought he saw a sour expression come over her pretty face.

She was probably mad at him, he thought, but couldn't think of anything specific he might have done. Asuka didn't need a reason to be mad. Rei, for her part, gave no hint that she'd even heard the bell in the first place; her blank expression didn't change.

Shinji never stopped being amazed by the polarizing extremes of their personalities.

Quick returning to his desk next to Kensuke, Shinji dropped into his seat and pulled up his computer screen. Within a minute he had to stand and sit again as the teacher entered and Hikari called, "Rise! Bow! Sit!"

Looking around him, the rest of the scene seemed almost unreal. Regular students in a regular classroom, doing what students did in classrooms every day of the week. Nowhere was it evident that for three of them it was little more than a farce.

The teacher began his lecture in earnest, ignoring the dozens of bored faced doing everything they possibly could to pass the time without appearing to be doing just that. Most of them simply pretended to take notes while really playing with the computers.

His blue gaze descended to his own screen, and Shinji saw he had a message waiting to be read, from _Langley no less. He hadn't even noticed her typing, and Asuka never sent him messages. Curious, he clicked on it.

'Don't stand in front of the door next time and I won't yell at you, deal?'

Shinji blinked, confused. He looked up and saw Asuka sitting perfectly straight in her chair, not moving, her golden-red hair falling down to the middle of her back.

He read the message again. Even in her sharp, haughty voice it almost sounded like she was saying sorry. And though that was probably not the case, he wanted desperately to believe Asuka wouldn't have sent such a message for nothing.

* * *

Unit-00 was not ready, but it would have to do for now.

Most of its armor was still missing so that it appeared as a huge, rather skinny naked human as it was secured to the cage by means of an improvised restraining system. Only the helmet, in its bare orange primer with its single red eye, was in place. But it wasn't exactly human in shape; its body was a patchwork of components, some cloned, some regenerated, and some, like the spinal cord and head, were actually spare parts of older failed models kept in the depths of the facility.

It was truly a modern Frankenstein's monster. The skin was several tones of brown and gray, depending on the origin of that particular component, covering lean muscles that were slightly off in comparison to human proportions—the arms were long and the torso much too narrow.

Even its core, protruding as a dark red sphere from Unit-00's chest, had to be scrounged together since Central Dogma did not possess the ability to make them from scratch. But the core contents itself could only be transferred, not copied or duplicated. Thankfully, the pilot's singular origin allowed some leeway in that respect.

Unlike other pilots, Rei was not intrinsically linked to a specific core. The normal relationships between pilot and Eva did not apply to her, and the nature of the link between her and Unit-00 was not the same as anyone else. Earlier cross-synchronization experiments had already determined her limited ability to pilot Unit-01. As she should be, all things considered.

Leaning her elbows against the safety railing, Ritsuko looked down at the armor-less Evangelion with contempt. She had a hand pressed against the side of her face, a careworn expression on her features. She had been standing there for a while, thinking how much she hated it.

The irony was not lost on her; it was, after all, her life's work. At least her mother could say that MAGI had reflected who she was as woman, a mother, and a scientist. Ritsuko did not share that kind of connection with any of the Evas. They were not a part of her. She had come to loathe them. And Unit-00 was the most loathsome of the group.

It wasn't really the first anymore, so calling it the prototype would not be an accurate identification. Technically, it was the last. But Ritsuko hated it as she had its predecessor, probably because of who was its pilot. And even that did not represent any kind of continuity, since Rei Ayanami, like her Eva, was basically a thing only recently created. But the pilot she was meant to replace, and the woman whose genes she shared were gone, and they were never coming back.

Ritsuko had told Rei that she hated what she represented, but that was an odd way of putting it. It implied a distinction between who and what she was.

As far as Ritsuko was concerned, it was a ridiculous idea. She should have just told her how she felt about her. Rei wouldn't care and it would have made her feel better.

"A penny for your thoughts, doctor."

Ritsuko recognized his voice at once, and turned her head to see Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki standing there, his hands in his pockets. He looked fatherly, as he always did, an interested expression carved on his heavily-lined features.

"Nothing important," Ritsuko said, trying her best to smile.

"Worried about the activation?" Fuyutsuki said, his gaze wandering over to Unit-00. "I see they have locked it down already."

Ritsuko straightened, taking her elbows off the metal railing. "There are so many things that can go wrong," she said. "I would feel better if we waited until the dummy was complete, but, alas, we don't always get what we want. Experimenting with the Tablet doesn't help, I suppose."

"Rei should be able to handle it," he said.

"Theoretically," Ritsuko corrected. "With all the modification she should be able to handle it. I have already prepared a synthesized version for Unit-02, but there's no telling what will happen for sure. Giving Unit-00 test priority makes sense, since at least Rei can synch with it."

Fuyutsuki picked up on her dark tone right away. "But you don't think it's wise?"

"What I think doesn't matter," Ritsuko said, turning back to look at Unit-00.

"Lieutenant Ibuki did a good job, didn't she?" Fuyutsuki said.

Even if he didn't say it, Ritsuko was aware that a compliment on the student was also a compliment on the teacher—on her. But she didn't feel complimented. Oddly, she felt like she wanted to be back in her cell. At least then she wouldn't feel forced to look at this thing anymore.

"Indeed she did."

* * *

"Financially speaking, this city is a like a black hole: it sucks every yen that comes within a lightyear." Junichi Nakayima said, as he tried to mask his disgust from the Tokyo-3 Council. "The Japanese Government and the MOI do not mind this fact, but some heads are beginning to turn in this direction. That is not a good thing, gentlemen."

This was the part of the job that he really hated. He had spent most of his life as a soldier, not a politician, and despite what Kluge said, making that change was not easy. A soldier always knew who the enemy was, a politician thought everyone was the enemy and consequently turned into the scum that soldiers were then sent to destroy.

It made Nakayima sick that he had to play the political role just to keep his cover.

"You are right, Nakayima-san. That is not good." Yamamoto Hibiki, chairman of the Council said. "But I'm sure that your are aware of the magnitude of this operation. Money is needed in vast amounts."

"That is all acceptable. What isn't is the fact that the funds were made available to you six weeks ago and we have yet to see any progress." Nakayima cast a glance at the other members of the council. They were all old men, which reminded him of the old Politburo he had read had ruled Russia in the middle and late twentieth century.

"When working in the field you can not guide yourself by any schedule," the chairman replied. "As a former military officer, you can surely understand that. The engineering required—it isn't like building a model airplane."

"As a former military officer I also understand that excuses are the last resort of a cornered ally," Nakayima said, bluntly. So much for politics, he thought. "And I also understand that objectives are measured by their inherent usefulness. There isn't a lot of that coming out of Tokyo-3 these days."

"Nakayima-san." Chairman Hibiki said as he rose to his feet. "This council is fighting a war on two fronts: The Ministry on one side and NERV on the other. We have to go about this in a way that will please both, because your organization has failed to get rid of NERV like you promised. At least the UN knew how to stay out of our business, which is more useful than the incessant oversight of government."

Nakayima tilted his head provocatively. "Are you saying this is our fault?"

"No," the chairman said, shaking his head. "I'm saying that, for us to work more efficiently, one of these two fronts most be eliminated: either you scratch NERV, or the Ministry gets off our backs."

"Neither is possible at this moment." Nakayima said. He would have loved to simply shoot the chairman and end the argument. "We can not get rid of NERV, and we are the civilian authority so we are not going anywhere either. The taxpayers have a right to know what their money is being spent on."

"Then your complaints, while duly noted, simply add to the uselessness. We can not be hounded like this, regardless of what your boss says. He is not an economist, after all."

The gathered men nodded and whispered their agreement. Nakayima had been told to expect this reaction, but even without being prepared for it he would have found it fairly predictable of people interested in keeping only their power.

"I was not assigned to be a burden," he told the council with fake pleasantry, "simply to remind you of our finite resources and the need for some returns on this investment."

"Then you should let us do our jobs," another of the council members said. "That is our duty after all. And you should stop implying what everyone in this room is certain you are implying, Agent Nakayima."

Nakayima bit his lip to keep from making the reply he wanted to make. This councilman was much younger than the rest, which probably accounted for his tactlessness.

And he must still be twenty years older than me, Nakayima thought.

What the hell was he doing with his life?

His father had once asked him the same question, when a 17-year-old Junichi Nakayima had told him he'd lied about his age to join the military. Up until that point the idea had been for him to follow on his father's footsteps and become a politician. It was what the entire family wanted from him; the future they had chosen for him.

He joined the military to spite them—there was honor in fighting for something instead of lying for a living. His father had threatened to disown him, but he didn't care. All his life he'd felt alienated, now he would be free. When he shipped out there had been no one there to bid him farewell. It hadn't bothered him.

Fake sincerity was worse than no sincerity. It was just more lies. Exactly the sort of thing he was trying to do now. It seemed his life had come full circle despite his best attempts.

"Gentlemen," another of the assembled men spoke up. "I am sure it is better for everyone involved to get along here. Instead of trying to trip each other up at every turn, we should focus on our common goals—that is the reconstruction of the city we have been entrusted with."

"Very much so," Nakayima said, reminding himself that he didn't have to like what he was doing. "We have to trust that each of us here has the best interest of the city at heart. It's the only way anything good will come out of this situation."

He just had to follow orders. Some orders were just harder than others.

Nearly an hour later the meeting finally adjured. Slowly, the councilmen left the room as deliberately as men who were not used to being rushed were inclined to do. More than one of the them gave Nakayima suspicious stare, though lacking any real resentment.

The conference room empty, Nakayima dropped into one of the chairs. His sore body complained as he leaned back and closed his eyes.

He was ready to go home. Hopefully, to get some sleep after another night spent trying to hack through NERV's servers. Even after months, it was still impossible. The security was simply too tight. But for the most part all he had to worry about was boredom so it was a rather cushy part of his job. Then, several nights ago, things had almost gone really wrong.

Nakyima had not been aware that there was anyone in the room with him until he heard the footsteps on the ladder, and then on the desk. He had set himself up in a corner between two server towers, mostly because it would help conserve body heat and because the servers themselves ran hot. Quietly but quickly, he pressed his back against the wall and reached into his uniform jacket for his gun, hoping against hope that he wouldn't be forced to use it.

He did not want to kill anyone. Not ever again.

When the footsteps began to fade, he scooted forward and peered around the server hiding him from view, catching a glimpse of a red jacket. He knew who she was instantly—he had seen the jacket earlier in the day.

Misato Katsuragi.

None of the questions that arose from that meeting made sense to Nakayima so he had pushed them into the back of his mind, along with everything else he tried to keep from thinking about. It was getting rather crowded back there recently.

Nakayima opened his eyes again and looked around the room. It was all so very pointless, but he had no excuse not to try anymore, and his boss was not known for his patience. Results were all that mattered. Results that, by now, he was sure he could not deliver.

* * *

Asuka tossed her wet towel on the bench that ran down the length of the locker room, next to her discarded plugsuit, and reached into her locker for her panties—and caught a glance of the young, slender girl with blue eyes and golden-red hair opposite her. She clenched her teeth, feeling a sudden, vicious impulse to slam her fist into the mirror.

It was just so unfair that she couldn't wake up one morning and be an adult already, puberty be damned.

Being a teenager was like being stuck in limbo. She was not a child anymore but was not a woman either; barely even had any pubic hair but had to endure the physiological consequences of womanhood every month in the form of her period; wasn't ready for sex but wanted nothing more than to somehow fill the emptiness she felt inside of her; wasn't even old enough to buy liquor, not even close, but had to watch the stupid commercials on TV telling her how it could solve all her problems.

Since she was a little girl, Asuka had been aware that most people saw her very negatively and thought she only cared about herself. But the reality was different—if she could now choose to be anyone, the last person Asuka would choose to be was herself.

Before she would have at least had her Eva.

Though she had no reason to be surprised anymore, her latest synchronization test had been awful. After weeks of trying she was still only barely above the starting indicator. Without really knowing why she always expected some improvements that never materialized, and left her feeling bitter. The constant reassurance from those around her didn't help because she knew they were lying. There was nothing more any of them could do; she was just too badly broken.

Her life had become a vicious cycle of self-loathing, deep anger, and failure. That Shinji and the doll had been around today to see her fail only added to her ire.

Asuka bent over, holding open her panties in front of her and quickly stepping into them, then pulling them up her legs as she straightened.

She dropped her head to avoid looking at her reflection again and snatched her bra angrily off the top shelf, and wriggled her arms into it. Next, she put on her blouse and worked her way up the buttons before slipping into her uniform jumper, which she clasped securely around her narrow waist after tucking in and pressing her blouse.

All this she did in a rush, moving purposefully.

She had rushed through her shower routine too, only taking long enough to rinse the worst of the LCL out of her hair and scrub herself down to prevent the liquid from forming a sticky residue on her skin, then hurriedly drying off. There had barely been time to register the pleasant feeling of the hot water cascading down her back.

She would have liked to linger, enjoying the feeling of warmth as a steamy mist rose around her, but not today.

Today she needed to be done before …

Rei Ayanami entered the locker room like a white ghost, her footsteps making only the faintest sound, and walked over to her own locker, a few places down from Asuka. The redhead tried to ignore her as she began undressing, unbuttoning her blouse and folding it neatly before moving on to removing her skirt.

The proximity of the doll was enough to make the hairs on the back of Asuka's neck stand on end. She hated the girl—that was no mere hyperbole. She had hated Rei Ayanami since the day they met, and hated her even more ever since the First Child had saved Asuka from the Angel that broke into her mind. And then there was her relationship with Shinji.

Asuka had long since stopped wondering how she could feel such vile emotions towards her. Like her, Ayanami was barely a teenager, not old enough to even be properly called a woman. She hardly ever spoke—certainly never spoke to Asuka—and they only saw each other at school so it was not like they were often in close contact. And they had both been through a lot. In another universe they might have been able to comfort one another.

But as uncalled for as it might be, Asuka just hated her.

Plain and simple hatred.

As Rei continued to undress, Asuka found that she could no longer stand being in the same room with the doll. She promptly emptied her locker and slammed the door shut loudly. Holding her book bag, neural connectors, shoes, and socks in her arms, she stormed barefoot to the entrance, brushing past Rei's now topless form.

"Is there a problem, Pilot Soryu?" Rei asked as Asuka walked by, her voice soft and flat.

Asuka stopped on her tracks but did not turn. She was clutching her belongings so furiously tight that her arms hurt, her slender hands turning into claws. "No."

The word could have easily been a thrown dagger.

"Am I required to ask about your test? Do you wish to have a conversation with me? I am usually never alone with other girls my own age."

"Just shut up," Asuka spat. "I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to hear you. I don't even what to look at you. Just being around you makes me sick."

"Oh," Rei's voice did not change, and if she was offended at Asuka's tone she hid it well. "Is there something I could do to--"

"Make me like you?" Asuka interrupted her, turning her head to glare at her over one shoulder. "Sure, there's one thing. You can die today."

Rei's porcelain face did not change. She didn't even blink. And the lack of a response just angered Asuka all the more. What could Shinji ever see in this doll—this perfect little emotionless doll? How he could he possible choose _that _over a living, breathing human being like herself, who actually had a mind of her own and could feel things?

Or maybe that was why he was so close to Rei Ayanami—like his father, maybe he just wanted a doll that would do whatever she was told. A doll who would never talk back, who would die for him if he wanted her to. It was sick.

Asuka would never be like that, regardless of how desperate and lonely she felt. She would never be a doll.

Realizing the pointlessness of saying anything more, Asuka resumed her pace. But now there was something heavy in her chest. The thought of Shinji and Rei had, through whatever strange alchemy anger held over the mind, created a tight sensation that threatened to close down like a pincer around her heart.

By the time she made it to the entrance Asuka could hold back no longer. "Stay away from Shinji," she said. "He doesn't need somebody like you."

"Is that what he thinks?" Rei said, again her voice was soft but completely emotionless.

"No. That's what I think. Stay away from him."

"I should imagine that if the Third Child no longer is to associate with me, then that should be his decision, not yours. Even if you do have his well-being in mind. If he does not want me to speak to him, he should tell me. I would not be angry."

"Pathetic!" Asuka laughed bitterly. "So the doll wouldn't even mind being dumped like yesterday's garbage? I didn't realize you were so well trained."

Rei shook her head slightly. "It is not training, but if Ikari should make that decision then I would hope to understand it. I would not begrudge him for it."

"Whatever," Asuka retorted with barely controlled anger. "Stay away from him. For his own good. And yours. Unless you want to have a problem with me."

Rei shook her head. "I do not understand."

"Sure you do. You might be able to fool Idiot-Shinji with your act, but you don't fool me. I see you for what you are—a heartless doll, incapable of feeling anything. So what's the point in having someone have feelings for you? Ha, what's the point in even being alive? That's why I really hope you die in your Eva today. You'd be doing everyone a favor."

Leaving those words to hang in the air, and her own shrill voice filling her ears, Asuka rushed out of the locker room. It wasn't until she made it to the other end of the hallway that she spotted a small equipment closet and ducked in to finish fixing up her uniform. At the very least to put her shoes on.

"Stupid," Asuka growled under her breath, not sure if she was still cursing the doll or herself. She threw her things on a nearby crate, and stood there in silence for a while.

* * *

Shinji Ikari felt his entire body relax in the darkness, giving in to the odd and familiar sense of belonging. As he slowly breathed the LCL that filled the metallic confines of the entry-plug and soaked everything, echoes and whispers seemed to float out to him; things he could not understand but that somehow made it all better. That gave meaning to what he was doing. But, like a mother's cooing to her child, no questions were answered.

Why was he here again? He promised to himself that he would never do it—it was too painful after what he'd done to Kaworu. And yet here he was, ready to once more ride the beast he had never fully understood.

And it felt...nice.

Comforting somehow, as if the Eva could sense his apprehension and responded to it. Shinji knew this was more than just a machine, that there was a more primal and complex connection happening here, but it didn't make sense. There were still so many things he didn't know. And that was why he was so afraid for Rei.

"Main power activated. Initiating neural connections 1 to 78 on the first block," Maya said over the intercom, her voice more serious than Shinji could recall hearing it. "Proceed to second block upon successful completion."

He was a part of Eva—all the pilots were. Together, he and Unit-01 created a unique bond that didn't ever seem possible with other people. For a time Asuka had done so with her Unit-02 as well, and indeed her Eva had seemed to be the only thing that could make her happy. But Unit-00 was entirely unpredictable.

Savage.

"Synch status nominal across the board and holding," said a male voice Shinji recognized as Hyouga's. "Activate second block, connections 79 to 134."

"Clearing primary borderline. All green. Safety checks well within the limits." Another male voice, Aoba's. "All A-10 links enabled."

"Initiating third block connections, neural waves nominal."

Shinji tightened his grip on the main controls on either site of his command seat. He felt tense, his heartbeat quickening. He thought about Rei and how she must be feeling. It would be the first time for her—truly the first time, and knowing what had happened before he had no idea how she could find the courage.

He would be safe here, Unit-01 always protected him; Rei was another matter. It was for her that he decided to break his own promise to himself, and why he was here.

Almost a full minute went by before the sound of the speakers echoed again through the quiet entry-plug.

The darkness inside the entry-plug came suddenly to an end, plunging the cylindrical space into a rainbow of swirling color and quickly resolving into a clear cockpit that became like a transparent window from which he could see the outside world. A warped canopy that corrupted even the light that passed through it.

It was a digital illusion; the entry-plug was buried deep inside the Eva, surrounded by flesh and metal and thick armor.

"Final borderline cleared, connections complete. Synch ratio holding at 81.98 % . Battery enabled, external power nominal. S2 engine secured and inactive. Evangelion Unit-01 has been successfully activated."

Shinji sighed. Small bubbles floated from his lips to the top of the plug. That was that—Unit-01 was now activated for the first time in months. His promise was broken. He eased back into the command seat without really ever becoming aware that he had tensed up.

"Nicely done, Shinji," Misato said over the radio, her voice cheerful. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Shinji replied, doing a quick mental check. "Everything feels like it used to."

"We'll take care of everything on this end, don't you worry about anything. Maya's on top of things. Ritsuko is here too. Your job's done for now."

His job was done, Shinji repeated to himself. Not that he ever did anything because the Eva synched to him naturally with no real conscious effort on his part. It worked. It just did. He wondered why it couldn't work the same way for either Rei or Asuka. In the case of the later, it would no doubt do a lot to ease her grief and the heavy feeling of bitterness that seemed to surround her, and in the case of the former ... he still didn't believe Rei belonged in an Eva, period.

And that he was apparently the only one that cared was a source of endless frustration. At least Misato seemed to understand why it was not right, but even she did nothing to stop it. Shinji already knew she didn't have a choice. Like she didn't have a choice about him.

While before he might have a resented for that, now it was so very pointless. Misato did what she could; if she could help it, Shinji himself wouldn't be sitting inside Unit-01.

"Perform routine system check," someone said on the radio, a high-pitched female voice Shinji had not heard before. "Second team, move on to Unit-00. Follow pre-determined safety parameters and report as soon as POST is completed before full synchronization."

"Understood. Unit-00 is ready for POST and reporting."

He anxiously glanced out of the cockpit-like layout of his plug and saw the blue colored Unit-00.

If Unit-00 went berserk, Shinji would have to stop it—no matter what, he would save the pilot. He was very aware of the limitations of the restraint system holding Unit-01 in place and that it would not hold him if he really tried to break out of it, but he was also sure that Misato would likely release him if the need arose.

"Misato-san?" Shinji called out, knowing she was listening to him.

"Yes, Shinji?"

"Can you keep a communication channel open? I want to listen in while Unit-00 is activated."

There was a moment of hesitation on Misato's part, then he heard her say, "Ritsuko?" Whatever the blond doctor replied was not audible enough to be picked up by the microphone, but Misato relayed it instead. "Ritsuko says it'll just clutter up the array. Sorry."

"Yeah, okay," Shinji sighed, a little disappointed.

It was just like Dr. Akagi to want to keep him in the dark. That woman, who he had once liked, had no compassion in her heart. The way she talked to Rei made him sick to his stomach, like she was just a doll to her.

And, of course, Shinji still remembered watching her destroy the dummy. He still has nightmares about that grotesque scene some times—the Rei look-a-likes falling apart in the LCL, her eyes open and staring mindlessly, and he could have sworn he heard laughter.

To think that Rei, the girl he wanted to protect, had come from that place …

On the outside a figure clad in a form-fitting white suit then stepped onto the gantry surrounding Unit-00's ghastly, extremely lanky body. Shinji's attention became intently focused on Rei as she walked to the area where her entry plug had just been inserted into its receptacle behind her Eva's armored neck.

There was a detached airiness to her stride, as if she weren't even there. The quiet elegance of her movements and the slender shape of her young body were both accented by her plugsuit, which fitted her like a second skin. Unlike the severe red color of Asuka's suit or the rather neutral blue-white combination of Shinji's own, Rei's was almost entirely white except for a few accents of green on the harness beneath her breasts and the twin dark gray lines running from her backside down along the outside of her legs.

The suit was pressurized in the sense that it was held in place by a vacuum, molding it to the wearer's every curve. While Shinji had never thought he looked very heroic in his suit, despite being assured otherwise, Rei looked dashing and feminine beyond words, a white angel with blue hair.

Shinji knew how frail she was, too. She may not be his Rei, not Ayanami, but she was still a human being. Somebody had to be her guardian angel. Somebody had to care enough about her that they would risk being hurt themselves or hurting others for her sake and break promises for her.

And that somebody was Shinji Ikari.

That was why he was here, the only reason he had found it in himself to fight the demons of his past and of Eva. He had to protect Rei just as she had done several times for him.

Perhaps it was guilt—in fact, Shinji was pretty sure it was. When had first found out about Rei he had been so terrified of her he cut her off completely from his life. But after months of avoiding her, it seemed like he just couldn't stay away from her. A part of that was no doubt the lingering feelings he still had for Ayanami. Making that distinction between them was almost impossible. Even now, at unguarded moments, he found himself thinking of them as the same person.

That, he knew, was another reason. In protecting Rei, a part of him felt like he was actually protecting Ayanami. He had failed her once, he did not want to do so again.

Shinji would like to think he would do the same for Asuka if she let him, and for Misato if she needed him to. Did that make him brave? He didn't think so. It just meant they were important to him.

Rei stopped at the foot of her entry-plug. She placed a hand on the huge metal cylinder and stood there for a moment. Shinji could have used the capabilities of the Eva to zoom in on her image and get a better look, but decided that it would be like an invasion of her privacy.

She looked behind herself, and for a second her eyes, distinctly red even from a distance, seemed to stare into Shinji before moving away, up towards the window of the control room. Shinji followed her gaze and saw Ritsuko standing there.

Shinji frowned. Was Rei having second thoughts? Was she not ready for this? Was she being forced?

Then, before he could answer any of those questions, Rei turned back and climbed through the hatch of her entry-plug. Into the darkness within.

"I'll be protecting you," Shinji mouthed silently to himself, watching her disappear from view and remembering the night when she had said those very same words to him. "I promise."

* * *

"All right, that's one down," announced Maya, a little tone of relief slipping through her otherwise serious facade. "Unit-00's pilot is now in place. Flood the entry-plug with LCL."

As the LCL filled Unit-00's plug, its progress tracked by a colored graph on a computer monitor, Misato carefully scanned the control room around her. In front, near the thick armored windows overlooking the cages, Ritusko was looking out at the enormous metal and concrete cage that held the Evas. Haruna, Aoba and Hyouga sat on their respective consoles. Maya stood besides Misato, doing her best to appear calm and collected.

This was project after all, representing months of work and endless concern.

For safety reasons no one else was allowed in the room. Not that were that many people left who could perform high-level procedures like this one effectively. Even Misato was only there in the interest of the children.

"Flooding complete," Haruna called from her station. It would be the girl's second ever activation test—the first having taken places just minutes ago—so the excitement in her voice was acceptable.

"Begin Unit-00 activation sequence," Maya said. She turned to Misato. "Let's cross our fingers..."

"We should keep an eye on the loading interface for the A-10 connection," Ritsuko said, not taking her eyes from the thick armored window. Even to Misato, who had known her for a long time, she seemed very tense. "The new program hasn't been tested on a live subject."

"Live subject?" Misato frowned, the term causing her stomach to turn. She hated Ritsuko's detachment with a passion. It wouldn't kill her to actually refer to the children as people.

"Yes," Ritsuko replied without apparently noticing the major's distaste. "Our simulations, while rather comprehensive, are still based on a computer conscience. MAGI can account for certain shortcomings in the human mind but it can not adequately simulate them. Therefore, the results of those simulations still leave an unknown element as to what the result will be when synching Rei to the system."

Misato almost rolled her eyes. "Of all the things that can go wrong, you are worried about a computer program's results?"

"Unexpected problems often become the biggest problems, Major Katsuragi," Maya said, and Misato was taken aback by how that seemed exactly like something Ritsuko would say. "I suppose that is a law of experimentation. It's very similar to Murphy's. Doctor Akagi is just being thorough."

Ritsuko turned her head to give Maya an odd look of approval. Misato felt as though the cold doctor's demeanor had started to rub off on her warm-hearted protégé. Like some kind of disease that would eventually shut out all of the humanity that the young girl might still have left.

"Nothing is unexpected," Ritsuko replied somberly, returning her attention to the glass. "That's why I wanted to have Unit-01 out there at the same time. Just in case."

"You mean you want Shinji to clean up your mess in case you calculations are flat wrong," Misato said sharply. She was not much a cynic but Ritsuko always brought that out in her.

Ritsuko's reply was completely emotionless. "No, the maintenance crews will take of that. Shinji's there to make sure we are still around afterward."

* * *

Being inside the Eva was strange—different than before, than anything she thought she remembered. Rei Ayanami had never felt anything like it. It was like being isolated from the rest of the world. As the LCL flooded the entry-plug, she felt its warm grip through the thin material of her plug-suit. And as the liquid rose above her head and she took a breath, she realized it smelled like blood.

Rei leaned back on her seat, feeling the two control sticks she had on both sides. She had never been so alone in all her short life.

Alone ... always alone...

A thought came to mind. She had always felt awkward in this place, the girl that came before her. It wasn't fear or pain or anything as powerful as that, but more of a feeling, a faint sense, that she didn't belong. That there was already something else here. Someone. And she wanted her out.

"We are ready to start." Maya's voice broke through the silence. "Rei, can you hear me?"

"I am ready," said the blue-haired pilot.

"Good. We'll now begin power-up procedures and voltage check on all systems. Please stand by. This channel will remain open for you. Don't hesitate if any issues come up."

A light went through the entry-plug like a tidal wave, a rainbow that had somehow been twisted into a ring running the length of plug's cylinder. And suddenly Rei felt nausea. She immediately covered her mouth with both hands, out of reflex.

"Why ..." she asked, gagging, "does it feel this way?"

"I'm sorry," Maya replied. "It's your body's natural reaction to the Eva. Close your eyes and think of nothing. We'll do the rest."

Rei nodded and closed her eyes, as instructed, and leaving back tried to clear her mind. Soon the nausea faded. The entry-plug's walls turned into a swirling, patternless rainbow, every color changing and merging with the other. She had read why that happened—the phosphorescent diodes charging to different voltages randomly to reset them.

No, she hadn't read that. It hadn't been her. She was just remembering it, but the experience itself was not her own. Nothing was.

"Initiate the A-10 nerve connections."

A new scent came to her—something distinguishable even with the smell and taste of the LCL filling her senses. She knew this new scent. She hated it, and she didn't know why.

"Rei, are you worried?" Gendo Ikari had asked her after telling her that she would be activating Unit-00.

"No."

Then another voice echoed in the back of her mind. A shrill, high-pitched tone ringing with she had come to identify as bitterness. "I didn't realize you were so well trained!"

"Why does it feel this way?" she repeated.

"Rei, think of nothing," ordered Maya over the radio. She said something else, but her voice faded away to nothingness, like someone turning down the volume.

"How can I forget...why...why?"

The words didn't seem to come from her, emanating instead from somewhere in the dark. They felt distant, belonging not to her as she was now but to whomever she had been in the past.

"Your brain signal is spiking. Think of nothing. Relax," Maya said with increasing concern, but the words were lost on the pilot. Rei was no longer listening. She couldn't. Her head was beginning to hurt. "Rei, can you hear me?"

Rei closed her eyes. There was only darkness in her life now.

"Why...did you...have...to...do that to me? I tried to forget...really tried...to leave you behind...to move away...to die, but you wouldn't let me."

"Rei, you are not making any sense."

And then there was a flash of orange light. And she couldn't breath anymore. Her skin burned as if her plug-suit had suddenly been set on fire. Her head throbbed, painful blows of a hammer against her skull.

And she felt herself fall—her heart, her mind, her whole being just falling, further inside the Eva until she recognized nothing but deep sadness and despair, and a loneliness so thick it was what it must have felt like to die.

"Rei?"

* * *

"Linkage sequence complete," Aoba reported, his face a mask of concern. "Abnormal brain signal on all circuits. Initiating first Link-up phase. Should we continue?" he raised his head as he said this and looked expectantly at Maya.

Instead it was Ritsuko who replied. "Is it tolerable?"

There was a moment of hesitation. Then, the answer, "Barely."

"Continue," Ritsuko said, ignoring the look of protest on Maya's face. "Lets get this over with as quickly as possible," she added.

Aoba went back to his console, but not before looking at Hyouga, who shook his head.

"Brain activity has increased exponentially," Haruna called out from her console. "The synchro-graph is all over the place. Patterns are shifting continuously."

"Rejection starting in central nervous system! Abnormal readings on all levels!" Aoba shouted.

"How can you continue with this?" asked Misato, stepping closer to Ritsuko and reaching out a hand to grab her by the arm. "This isn't safe anymore. You are putting Rei in danger for the sake of an experiment."

"We are within limits." Ristuko stared her down. "There is no physical threat to the pilot."

Misato turned to Maya. "Lieutenant Ibuki, you will call this off immediately."

Maya looked at her for a moment, then at Ritsuko, and dropped her head apologetically. And it was then, her insides clenched with anger, that Misato realized Maya was no longer responsible for Unit-00. Ritsuko was in charge here.

"Rejection spreading to other systems!"

"Abort test!" Misato yelled, wheeling back to Ritsuko, who just stood there calmly looking outside the window at Unit-00. "Ritsuko!"

"Not yet," Ritsuko said. "If this is ever going to work, we need as much usable data as we can. There will not be another chance. I know it must seem harsh to you, Misato, but that is simply because you do not know the consequences of failure."

"Second thought pattern detected!" Hyouga all but screamed.

Maya jerked her head in his direction so fast it was wonder her neck didn't snap. She rushed to his console and leaned over his shoulder. "That's impossible."

Misato moved back to get a look at his screen—sure enough, where should have just been one jagged line indicating Rei's thought signal being broadcast from her A-10 connectors, she saw two lines crossing each other and merging back into one.

"Is that some kind of mental contamination?" Maya asked no one in particular.

"Not over a closed system," Hyouga said, staring at his own screen. "The only thing that should show up here are Rei's brain waves. Maybe it's some kind of thought noise randomly coalescing into a wave pattern on a close enough frequency to be picked up and cause interference?"

"Mathematically, what are the odds of that?"

Hyouga shook his head. "I don't think we have numbers that big."

"It's a malfunction," Ritsuko said calmly. "A misread. The sensors should only be picking up Rei's A-10 wave because it is the only link that can exist between the pilot and the Eva. The most likely cause for two signals would be equipment failure. In fact, the entire system seems to be breaking down. We'll have to try to diagnose the problems one by one and fix them."

"But ma'am—"

"What else are you suggesting, lieutenant?" Ritsuko interrupted Maya's protest, her voice as no-nonsense as Misato had ever heard it. "That you think there is a second mind in that Eva? Is THAT what the Commander should expect to read in your report?"

Maya's manner changed immediately, to that more befitting a chastised little school girl than someone of her rank and experience. "No, ma'am."

"Purge the system," Ritsuko ordered. "Do we still have communication with the pilot?"

"Just static," Aoba said.

"Vitals?"

"Steady pulse. LCL temperature and pressure are normal. Video monitoring equipment not responding, but other than the synchrograph, she would seem to be fine."

"We can't go on," Misato said. "Not without knowing for sure that she's alright."

"She's fine, why wouldn't she be?" Ritsuko said with a certainty that was contagious. "Maya?"

The short haired girl looked extremely uncomfortable. "I … don't have any reason to think otherwise."

"See?" Ritsuko said coolly. "I don't suppose you'd want to consider the fact that we essentially had to put Unit-00 back together from scraps. There were always bound to be problems like this."

Misato had to reluctantly concede the point. Aside from the errant readings—readings they all agreed could not be explained—there was no real danger. She was not in agreement, but there was little she could do.

"I'd feel better if we could talk to her," Misato said.

"So would I. Her direct input would be very useful." Ritsuko turned back to the assembled crew. "Change over to log diagnosis. I want a record of everything we do."

A series of positive acknowledgments followed that order.

As much as she hated thinking this way, if nothing else Rei was a valuable asset. Ritsuko would be damned if she risked her needlessly. That, at least, gave her some measure of comfort. Maybe she'd be able to keep this promise to Shinji after all.

* * *

The cloudless sky was a deep crimson, the color of blood diluted in water. Beneath it lay a vast orange ocean, the glass surface completely still as far as the eye could see. There was no wind, no stars, nothing. Rei Ayanami stood in the liquid—LCL, it seemed—up to her thighs, perfectly still, looking down at her own reflection. Behind her was a dead tree, seven decayed branches splitting skywards like bony fingers reaching out from a grave.

"Is this Eva?" she asked no one. Her voice carried on forever over the LCL. She noticed that the lips of her reflection did not move when she spoke. "No. This is someone else."

She turned her head to look at the tree and realized that it did not have that wooden texture that would be expected from trees everywhere. The whole thing seemed like it was made of shadows, though it did not cast one onto the surface of the LCL.

"Where am I?"

The last thing she remembered was the feeling of nausea as Unit-00 was activated. She heard voices whispering faintly in her ear, stirring locks of short blue hair, but the words made no sense. As if spoken in a language she was not meant to understand.

"Am I dead?"

Nothing. She looked around. She must still be inside the Eva, possibly in some kind of dream-like state induced by the stress of the activation. Since it was her first time, such a reaction could be explained.

After all, the Eva had not felt like anything else she'd experienced before.

"You are different."

The words were not spoken. There was no sound. Only a chill that ran up her body and somehow transformed into language. She looked down at herself and realized that her plugsuit had vanished and she was naked. But her reflection had not changed—it stared up at her with cold red eyes that could not possibly be human.

For the first time she was seeing what others saw.

She reached down, her fingertips brushing the surface, causing ripples to distort her reflection. She felt suddenly cold. Whatever it was, she was touching it.

"Who are you?" she asked again, unafraid.

Her reflection shifted, its features wrinkling in annoyance. Again she heard that strange voice. "You are different. You do not feel like those before."

"I am not like anyone else," Rei said. "I am myself."

"Are you not afraid?" her reflection asked, red eyes narrowing.

"No."

"I should have known," the thing said. "Nobody has ever been able to speak to me as you are doing now. That is how I know you are different. That is how I know of your uniqueness. I am unique as well."

Rei was curious. "No one has ever spoken to you?"

"Not in this manner. Not like equals," it said. "If I must answer to questions then I shall say only that I have never been given a name. I exist by myself, a part of nothing else. But I learned from contact with those that came before that to exist by oneself is meaningless. The true value of existence can only be calculated by the contact between beings. My existence is merely my reflection in the minds of others, as they see me. As you see me. So I am you and I am myself as well."

"Are you an Angel?"

"No. I am free from the Tetragramaton. I am as you are, a creation of man. Those you call Angels are simply an aberration born out of a path that leads to destruction. As everything in nature must have balance, so too existence must have a counter-existence. Your Angels are but alternate parts of yourself. The antithesis to everything you are. Do you not know this?"

Rei shook her head slightly. "Why should I?"

"Because in knowledge lies understanding. Therefore, in that link lies the means by which I am to fulfill my purpose and thus the reason why I exist. Those that came before possessed a wealth of knowledge, experience accumulated through years of heartbreak and loss. They understood fear, loneliness, hatred, love. But you are foreign to all those things. To me you feel ... empty."

She felt a chill run over her, and the LCL around her legs suddenly became much colder. She looked down at her reflection on the rippling surface, and saw that her face was frowning. Except it wasn't really her face. She could not feel the muscles of her brow tightening, nor the kind of emotions that went hand in hand with that expression.

"So, in turn, it is I who must now ask you a question," the voice said again. "What are you?"

"I am Rei Ayanami. I am myself."

The LCL grew even colder—it felt like it was burning her almost.

She winced at the pain, shrinking her shoulders and drawing her arms closer to herself, but could not escape it. "It hurts."

"Your name is not an answer. Not even to yourself. It is simply a front created by others and given to you. It does not answer the question."

Rei shook her head, unable to think of anything else. "Then I do not know."

"What are you, stupid?" The voice changed halfway through that sentence. The shrill, familiar tones of the Second Child now seemed to pierce the air and stab her everywhere.

Rei had never minded her fellow pilot; the Second Child was loud and hostile in ways Rei simply didn't understand, but she was only being herself. She didn't dislike her for that any more than she disliked Doctor Akagi. But now there was something about this voice that filled her dread. Something about what she'd said.

"I do not understand," Rei called out, keeling forward as she did. "I do not understand. Why does it hurt?"

"I want you to die," the Second Child's voice said again. "You'd be doing everyone a favor. I want you to die."

Would she really? Was Rei hated so much that other really wished her harm? Was everything she thought she knew about her relationships with others just a misunderstanding? Even the things she thought she knew—the feelings she attached to people like Shinji Ikari—were just wrong because she was incapable of comprehending.

Because she was empty.

And she was hated.

The Second's voice came again. "You would die if he asked you to."

Rei could hear and feel the venom in those words almost as if it were running inside her veins. It stung badly, sparking small flares of pain into an all-consuming firestorm. The answer was obvious—undeniable.

"Yes."

The voice changed again, into Commander Ikari's. "Rei, are you worried?"

The pain turned to something else—fear—terror—her mind did not know how to describe it. An awful realization of what it meant to be nothing and yet live amongst beings that expected her to understand them.

"I do not want to die," Rei cried, wrapping her arms protectively around herself, slouching forwards. Her knees remained frozen, the only thing keeping her from falling.

In the LCL, her plug-suited reflection was grinning broadly, madly. "I hate what you represent."

"Why …" Rei hissed in pain, grimacing, "why does it hurt?"

"Pain is life," her grinning counterpart said. "Pain validates your existence. And, in turn, it validates mine. You are but reflections on a mirror of sorrow and solitude. You humans, sad creatures. You fear pain as you fear hell, and go about your lives without realizing. Hell is other people … and so is pain."

And something grasped her underneath the LCL—hard fingers that felt scaly against the soft pale skin of her ankles, her calves, working their way up her legs. She jerked away but the she was held tight on the spot. Her heart was racing.

Laughter from behind her made her turn. She was looking at the tree again, and in her shock noticed dozens of gleaming red eyes staring at her from dark faces carved into the dead wood.

Her own face.

The LCL seemed to explode in front of her, and she turned again. Standing there was herself—blue hair, white-black plugsuit, gleaming red eyes that carried a kind of power Rei had never felt.

She could smell the LCL on her shape, like a mist of blood in the air, clinging to her. The red eyes fixed unto her, wide surreal orbs lacking in all compassion or humanity. The thing reached out a hand and grasped her wrists. Rei shuddered at the touch. It was repulsive. Cold. Dead.

And before Rei knew it she was being pulled down into the LCL, beneath the surface until the red sky disappeared in a rippling mass above.

Rei sank deeper. The light faded, so beautiful right before it died, and in the darkness she heard her own name being called. Over and over.

_Ayanami._

* * *

"Who are you?"

Rei did not know where she was; she did know, however, that it was not in this world. It was a different space, in a different time. Here she felt no sense of humanity. Here she was not Rei Ayanami; she was something else.

"Who are you?" she asked again.

"You know who I am," the voice answered.

_Ayanami. _

"Who are you?"

"I am you," the voice said. "What you were and what you will be. What he made you."

_Ikari._

"He made you human."

"Was I not human before I met him?"

_Rei Ayanami._

"You know the answer."

"Rei!" Another voice, very familiar and yet vague, like a lost relative she had not seen in a long time. Someone that cared about her and yet was distant.

"Who am I?" Rei asked the new voice, hoping it would answer her. But all her hopes always turned to nothing. Wasn't it a fundamental quality of human beings to keep hoping despite knowing it was useless? That it was hopeless?

"REI!" The familiar voice again, and this time is was accompanied by a feeling of warmth.

"Who am I?"

"REI!"

Rei opened her eyes slowly and gazed at the figure above her, her expression slack, completely blank. Shinji Ikari grabbed her shoulders and shook them slightly in an attempt to wake her.

"Rei," Shinji said, his concern leaking into his voice. He was hovering above her—the entry-plug had been opened but she was still sitting on the command seat. "Are you all right?"

Rei nodded weakly. The world felt hazy, as if someone had taken an eraser and smudged all the details. She saw his young face, his pale blue eyes looking down at her full of compassion and worry, and a sort of undeniable affection. She didn't understand.

"What … happened?" Rei's voice was weak and very hoarse, making it sound as though she had been screaming for a long time. She couldn't remember if she had been. She was exhausted, breath barely clinging in her lungs.

"I don't know," Shinji said, the emotion finally becoming too much and he seemed to be on the verge of tears, which he brushed away with the back of his gloved hands. "Are you … are you okay? When I saw you were passed out I thought you might have gotten hurt."

"Is that why you are sad?" Rei asked, innocently. She was like a child asking her parents about the cruel world. "You should not worry."

"Don't be silly, Rei," Shinji said and hugged her tightly. "I have to worry about you. The only sad thing is that you don't even worry about yourself. It's so wrong, but I guess you are just brave."

"Brave..." Rei rolled her head, and though the warmth of his embrace was comforting the world all around her began to slip away. Brave—she wasn't brave at all. She just didn't know how to be afraid, didn't know because she had never truly had anything to be afraid of.

She had a vague notion that her lips were moving, but the words didn't register. Shinji's expression changed, and she knew that whatever she was saying had shocked him. Then finally her own voice came to her.

"Thank ... you … for everything."

He blinked, his hands slipping around her shoulders as he hugged her again. "You don't have to. Understand? I will always be there."

There was no answer. It was then that Shinji realized that Rei's muscles had relaxed.

"Rei?" Looking down at her, Shinji saw her eyes were closed. And though her face was her usual calm mask, a heavy sensation in his chest told him that something was wrong. "Rei?"

He shook her gently. Nothing. Rei was limp, like a doll whose strings had been cut. And with the sudden chill of fear, Shinji turned his head and shouted as loud as he possibly could. "MEDIC!"

* * *

"I suppose there is no need to speculate," Gendo Ikari said, as he turned away from his second in command to face the blue-haired girl that lay unconscious in the bed. "The system is still too complex for a human subject to control."

"Even for Rei," Fuyutsuki said grimly.

"I had hoped that would not be the case, but there does not seem to be a way around it now."

Rei Ayanami appeared to be sleeping peacefully now. She had been slipping in and out of consciousness and vomiting for an hour or so before Ikari had had her finally sedated to spare any more side-effects. He had tried to talk to her with no success, and even Fuyutsuki had been concerned about the level of empathy he showed her.

Granted, she was the last one but it was still strange that Ikari would care to such a degree. He knew, of course, of the potential underlying reasons for that behavior. Gendo's love for Yui was very strong, and so was Fuyutzuki's.

But they'd both be fools to think of her that way.

Dr. Akagi had done a preliminary check-up, and concluded that Rei was lucky Maya had been fast enough to sever the connections to the Eva and that the flimsy software firewall had lasted as long as it did. Otherwise, the doctor had told Ikari, Rei's brain would have been reduced to a useless pulp.

"Then we must try to find another solution," Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki said. "The fact that both the Eva and the pilot reacted in such a way indicates that the code is simply incompatible with the human brain."

"Not incompatible," Doctor Akagi said, straightening over Rei, the syringe containing the sedative in her hand. "You could say the human mind is simply not advanced enough."

"The dummy system should be strong enough to handle the code," Ikari said, turning away from Doctor Akagi towards Fuyutsuki. "But it will take some more time to complete it. We'll have to settle ourselves for using the synthesized version on Unit-02's main interface program as soon as it is advisable."

"Even thought Unit-02 is in such a wretched state?" Ritsuko said. "Its pilot is not yet capable of using it."

"Her synch-ratio is over the starting indicator, that's a beginning," Ikari said.

"We can always use Unit-01," Fuyutsuki suggested. "I know you are against that, but we need a worst case scenario."

"Not unless it's absolutely necessary. If we can't get the dummy system back up in time, we'll gamble with the Second Child and Unit-02," Ikari said, then turned to his second-in-command. "We always seem to be gambling everything, don't we Fuyutsuki? But, then again, that's why we have survived this long."

Fuyutsuki nodded, but there was enough of an inflection in his superior's voice to tell him that he wasn't really asking. The answer was plainly obvious to all three of them. Finally, Ikari turned over to Rei, signaling that he had no further need for them. Fuyutsuki exchanged a look with Ritsuko on the way out of the room.

The unflinching blonde managed to hold on to her doubts until they were alone in the elevator.

"Do you think he's being unreasonable?" she asked, watching the scrolling floor numbers tick by on the counter. "The Tablet almost presents more risks that any possible benefit."

Fuyutsuki was not very surprised by her frankness—they had known each other so long that it was permissible despite rank. "In Unit-02 it might not even be an issue at all since the Second Child currently can't synch with it."

"And what if she can?" Ritsuko said. "You saw what it did to Rei. We have data, of course, but that can only help us so much. Yes, we have modified it, and it should be safe as far as we can tell. Then again, we thought it would be safe for Rei as well."

The former teacher nodded, listening to her opinion as he always listened to the opinions of his students and colleagues, which included both Ritsuko's mother, Naoko, and Ikari's wife, Yui. "Is he asking for the impossible?"

Ritsuko flashed him a grim look.

"It is possible, but our resources are more limited than before," she said. "And every mistake costs us time."

"Time is just a measure of our success."

"You sound just like him," Ritsuko said sarcastically, a clear edge to her voice. "You could have fooled me. But the truth is you don't like this any more than I do."

"I have my doubts," Fuyutsuki said, very aware that he did not have his disagreement with Ikari from her. She was obviously on his side as far as the Emerald Tablet was concern. Or, at least, its implementation.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Ritsuko frowned gravely. "If you have doubts, you might consider backing me up on this. Maybe we can talk him out of it."

"I have already tried," he said.

Ritsuko gave him look that indicated she expected more, some kind of explanation, perhaps. But Fuyutsuki knew when to push an issue and to let it go. He wasn't very happy with this turn of events but it was a possibility that had long been anticipated.

What could not be anticipated was recklessness—and Ritsuko's decision to carry on the test despite running into problems was nothing but that.

Rei could not be replaced anymore, thanks to Ritsuko's own doing. She should not be too careless with this last vessel. Accusations, however, would not get them anywhere. Ikari had not made an issue of it, and neither would he.

"At any rate," Ritsuko said, seemingly choosing to change the subject upon realizing the previous argument was finished, "Rei was the best possible subject because of her unique qualities, and because she is still, essentially, a blank slate that the Tablet's more aggressive protocols could not prey upon. Anyone else would have made the potential for disaster incalculable. It had to be her. The data we compiled will help us create a firewall program for future use. That is the most I think we have gained from this."

Fuyutsuki looked at her carefully. She had returned her eyes on the floor counter, whether to avoid his gaze or simply out of intense concentration he could not tell. "Always thinking ahead, aren't you, Doctor?"

"But the Tablet did prey on her," Ritsuko said, ignoring his comment. "And that means—"

"That we were wrong about Rei," Fuyutsuki finished for her, as he had already considered this. And, he was sure, so had Ikari.

Ritsuko shook her head slowly. "It's not Rei that worries me."

"No?"

"I fear both you and the Commander posses a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. You are worried about the technology. But the technology is perfect in the sense that it can be relied on to do exactly what it was engineered to do. It does not fail or second guess unless we instruct it to do so, and unless we do so ourselves. It does not make mistakes. I'm afraid that is exclusively the realm of human beings."

Fuyutsuki nodded, understanding. "You mean, us?"

She did make a good point, though he did not wholly agree with it. Human fallibility was such a staple of what it meant to be human that it was almost guaranteed under certain circumstances. But human beings had the ability to consciously realize their mistakes and to take steps to correct them. All that was needed was to put aside their arrogance and selfishness, and the inhered desire to hurt one another.

* * *

Maya Ibuki sat in the large, mostly empty cafeteria in Central Dogma, nursing her third beer. Because it was a wide open space, with high ceilings and large glass windows that offered a great view of the greenery outside, it was one of the few places in Central Dogma that did not feel like a tomb. But despite that, there was hardly a person in sight.

The lieutenant had never been fond of drinking, but Misato had told her that it would make her feel better. She figured the Major would know. And after Unit-00's failure and Rei getting hurt, Maya certainly needed to feel better like she needed air. So she had decided to hit the bottle in an attempt to flee drown her sorrows.

Funnily enough, Aoba had told her once that he preferred her with a few drinks in her, an amusing but annoying thought.

Her fellow technicians were probably still in the cage, running diagnostics of locking everything down. Maya had been excused.

She still didn't understand what had gone wrong. Even Shinji, a complete neophyte, had not suffered such a severe reaction to the Eva his first time. And Rei had done this many times before. It didn't make sense for her to lapse like that. Ritsuko had wanted to explain it away, but the explanations felt hollow. In the end it had all been Maya's responsibility, though the report she submitted carried both of their names.

"Hey, Dr. Ibuki!" The cheerful voice caught her by surprise.

Maya lifted her head just as Junichi Nakayima dropped into the seat next to her.

"Hello," Maya said, in a depressed voice, her hands clamping around the beer mug as if she thought he would try to take it away from her. "Are you working the night shift?"

"Yes. I just got a glimpse of my office, and there was a pile of paper, so I decided to sneak out. I really didn't sign up for this, you know," Nakayima said. "They told me it would a cushy job, not that it would be mind-numbingly boring. You? I thought you went home."

"No," Maya said. All the alcohol in the world could not make the dullness she felt now disappear. "I can't go home, not after what happened. Not today."

"Don't blame yourself, Doctor."

"I am not a doctor," she corrected him harshly. "I'm not even a post-grad. And who else is there to blame? It's my job to make Lazarus work, and it's my job to protect Rei's life. Today, I did neither."

"Don't be so negative," Nakayima said, in his most comforting voice.

Maya could only guess that he had heard about what happened from one of the technicians, apparently from someone who had never heard the phrase 'a slip of the tongue', because this was exactly the sort of thing that would be deemed as classified information. Too bad she was not really interested in keeping secrets at the moment.

"No, Agent Nakayima-san," Maya said, shaking her head. "It is my fault and no one else's. You know the Commander will want my head on a plate now. I don't think he was too happy with having me in charge."

He seemed truly understanding, which surprised Maya. She had expected he would start asking questions and pumping her for information by now. But maybe she had really figured him all wrong. Wouldn't be first time.

"Come on, Lieutenant—I can call you that, right?" Nakayima said and waited for her nod. "Commander Ikari must understand that the only thing to blame here is the circumstances. You get lots of that in the military. Try not to think of it. Go home, take a shower, and catch a nap. Everybody has the right to have a bad day."

"I don't think I can do any of those things right now."

"All you gotta do is go home and you'll start feeling better," he said. "I'll give you a ride, even."

It really was shocking. This government spy was the last person she'd expect this sort of kindness from. Perhaps it was that she was already drunk, but her tired mind did not even briefly question his motives in wanting to help her.

"And your work?" she said. "I assume it's important."

Nakayima waved his hand dismissively. "No one will notice I'm missing," he said "My job is not that important and besides, I need to get the hell out of here before I become allergic to fresh air."

Maya quickly drank the rest of her beer, then got up and followed Nakayima, stumbling slightly along the way.

* * *

"So she's going to be okay?" Shinji said into the phone, unable to keep the huge relief he felt from his voice.

He had been anxiously waiting for news about Rei since Misato had practically forced him to come home. She had promised to let him know how she was doing as soon as possible and given all that had happened between them Shinji hadn't questioned that she would. Her call had been a godsend.

"Yeah, Ritsuko says she'll be back on her feet in a couple of days," Misato said on the other side of the line. "I'm sorry it's taken me this long to get back to you. But there's nothing to worry about. Rei's a tough girl, she's seen worse."

Finally, after hours of dread and uncertainty, Shinji felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "That's good."

"Anyway, don't you worry about her. I'll try to arrange for you to visit as soon as she's able to have you, but I've got to get going now, Shinji. I'll be here all night so don't wait up, and don't let Asuka stay up too late either."

He wished she could see the look of gratitude on his face, the last part of her message not even registering. "Thank you, Misato."

"I promised, didn't I?" She said, adding hastily, "Bye."

"Bye."

The line went dead with a click.

As he turned to hang up the phone where it belonged on the kitchen table, Shinji caught his breath: standing on the doorway to the living room opposite him was Asuka, her face set firmly, her posture indicating that she was in a bad mood and already annoyed with his crap even though he hadn't said anything yet.

"Who was it?" Asuka demanded. Her eyes locked on him with such force that he wasn't sure he would be able to reply. "Were you talking to Misato? Was it about my test?"

Shinji shook his head slowly. "N-no, it was about Rei," he managed. "She wasn't seriously hurt during Unit-00's activation."

He had added that last part without thinking—he knew Asuka wouldn't care, if she knew about Rei's trouble with Unit-00 at all because she had left the Geo-Front and come home immediately after her own test without so much as talking to anyone.

The comment had simply slipped out, he had been so worried about Rei he couldn't help it.

Asuka scoffed. "Bah, I thought it was something important."

"Her life is important to me," Shinji said. "I care about her."

"I don't even know why," Asuka said with a frown, and the anger and derision in her voice made him suddenly grit his teeth. "She is just a doll--the Commander's little doll that will do anything to make her master happy. Why would her life be important to you when it's not even important to her?"

"You wouldn't understand."

He didn't like the way that came out either, he made it sound as if Asuka was completely unable to ever care about anyone other than herself.

"I wouldn't understand?" Asuka's voice began to rise. "I wouldn't understand!"

She stalked around the wooden table, her frown deepening until her thin eyebrows were nearly drawn together. Squaring her shoulders, she came to stand a foot or so away from him. "You can be so stupid!" she yelled in his face. "She's just a puppet. Do you think she'll love you because you care? She's a doll! She can't love you! She can't feel anything!"

Shinji could not hold the angry blues of her eyes and so he dropped his gaze, following the slender shape of her neck and down her body, noticing how the oversized mustard T-shirt she wore completely hid the lines of her lithe frame and clung to her so loosely it seemed about ready to slip off her shoulders.

He focused finally on her right hand, hanging by her side, provocatively close to the spot where the creamy white flesh of her upper thigh disappeared under the hem of her skimpy dark shorts. The garment itself was loose fitting but fairly high-cut, reaching a few inches lower than the shirt, and covered only a little more than underwear would.

It was always awkward to have her like this, barely clothed with hardly a step between them.

"R-Rei is not a doll," he muttered.

Asuka's hand clenched into a fist. "Look at me when you talk, idiot!"

She stomped down hard on his foot, the impact of her heel sending a dull pain through him. His eyes snapped back to hers instantly, and the contempt he saw reflected on those blue jewels sparked a kind of anger he hadn't felt in a long time.

Shinji recognized Asuka was much too different from Rei to like her, but she didn't have to hate her either. Rei didn't deserve it.

After all, he was different from Asuka too.

"Rei is not a doll!" His emotions getting the better of him, he repeated much louder in a voice that didn't seem to belong to him. The frustration he'd felt directed at himself since Asuka's coming out of the hospital seemed for the first time to turn outwards. "Just because you say that doesn't make it true. She has emotions!"

"She's a stuffed animal!" Asuka barked. "Not even a human being! Just a thing with nothing inside!"

"She is a more of a human being than you are!"

"I told her I hoped she would die!"

In that single instant of pure resentment, Shinji raised his hand and slapped her across the face.

And then he froze, and stared at her completely shocked, as much by what she'd said as by what he'd done. Never in a million years did he think he'd have the guts to hit her, no matter how much she deserved it. He could stand a lot from her—he had to or he simply wouldn't have been able to live with her. But actually hearing Asuka wish such a thing on Rei was too much. He had never been so angry at her. His hand stung, it felt strangely pleasant.

Asuka didn't back away.

"Idiot!" she screamed at him, rubbing her cheek where he had hit her. He didn't care—she could scream herself hoarse if she wanted. Her eyes were wide with fury, her lips held back into a menacing snarl, white teeth bared. "I hate you!"

The awful reply spilled from Shinji's lips uncontrollably. "I hate you too! And I hope YOU die!"

For a second he wasn't sure he'd actually said it aloud, and then …

Then something happened to Asuka's face.

Where before there had been nothing but anger, now he saw ... he saw that her eyes were shaking. She did nothing, said nothing, seemingly in emotional shock. Then a kind of hopeless smirk spread over her sharp features, and a gentle noise like a whimper escaped her throat, and her quivering eyes became watery as she were about to ...

Shinji stood perfectly still, but knowing, as angry as she had made him, that he had crossed the line. Even someone as stout-hearted as Asuka had her limit and he had just reached it.

He had just--

And without another word Asuka lunged forward, wrapped her hands around his neck, and squeezed tightly.

It took Shinji a moment to understand what was happening—it didn't seem real. All he could feel were her fingers digging into his soft flesh, strangling him.

He deserved to die for what he had said to her; for the way he had treated her all this time; for making her suffer. If she wanted to take his life he would not stop her.

Though he would have liked to look into her eyes one last time, he did not want the sight of her hateful glare to be the last thing he would remember her by. He would like to remember the girl he had met one day on a ship wearing a yellow sundress, whose pride always seemed to fuel great courage. The girl that had given him his first kiss. She would be rid of him now. He would never hurt her again.

His head forced back by her strength, Shinji closed his eyes in resignation and heard her breathing, ragged and uneven, and then something else.

The pressure on his throat eased slowly. Air and life returned to his lungs, but he felt as if he had already died inside. The world returned to his vision as Asuka's hands fell away from him—a ceiling that was still strange despite having lived here so long. Bringing his gaze down he saw her turn away, still a single step's distance, and bury her face in her hands like a broken little girl.

And then Asuka started to cry.

He had done this to her, like he had done it to Misato, and was shocked by the immediate realization that up till now he had never seen or heard Asuka cry. Not even when at times he thought she should.

She had endured everything she had without a single tear; she was that strong.

But now ...

Swallowing uncomfortably hard and fighting the urge to rub his throat, Shinji leaned closer to her without knowing exactly what he was supposed to do but knowing in the depths of his heart that he had to somehow find a way—words, gestures, anything—to console her.

Shinji lifted his hand as if to take one of her sagging shoulders, and said softly, "Asuka, please don't cry. I didn't mean--"

"Get away from me!" Asuka bellowed at the top of her lungs, her voice shaking and unrecognizable. She shoved him away violently, sending him stumbling backwards into the front of a nearby kitchen cabinet. "I hate you! I HATE YOU!"

He braced himself against the hard wooden surface, but in the time it took her to say that he managed to catch a glimpse of her eyes again, for a split second only. It was as if something had shattered behind the deep blue irises.

There was so much pain there ... and anger, and resignation. And he didn't even know why.

Suddenly, his guilt seemed to have stopped the beating of his heart.

How could he, a pathetic doormat as Asuka had often called him, have brought her to this? How deep must he have hurt her to make her cry?

Shinji couldn't stand to see her like this. But before he could utter a single word in apology, Asuka spun around and ran off, her golden-red mane billowing behind her. The sound of her anguished weeping and bare feet pounding the floor beneath her as she rushed across the empty apartment filled his ears until he heard her bedroom door slamming shut with tremendous force.

Then there was silence.

He tried absently to rub away the sensation of Asuka's strangling fingers from his neck, and stood there motionless for the longest time leaning against the counter Asuka had pushed him against. He felt the same dreary emptiness he'd felt after Kaworu's death, the same emptiness that had been hanging inside him since that moment, ever so ready to swallow him as it did now.

Whether it was an echo of that old wound or a new one opening up he couldn't tell, but the reason was the same.

Kaworu had been an Angel, he had to be destroyed; Asuka was just a young girl, a fellow pilot, his roommate, and maybe even more than that. It was all his fault. He had hurt someone close to him again—hurt her very badly. She would never talk to him again, or want to see him, or want to live with him in the same apartment. Whatever bonds may have connected them he had now torn apart.

Exhausted, he slid down until he was sitting curled up on the floor. He wrapped his arms around himself protectively and hung his head low between his knees, the relief he had felt at having good news about Rei completely forgotten.

"I'm sorry," Shinji whimpered. "I'm so sorry, Asuka."

And as stinging tears began running down his young cheeks, Shinji finally realized what the emptiness that haunted him was.

Heartbreak.

* * *

To be continued ...


	4. Expectations

Notes: Same as always. Thanks for Big D for proofreading this on such sort notice. Also, thanks in advance to anyone who actually posts reviews because that seems to have become a lost art.

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended.**

"**The most important thing we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are."--Stephen R. Covey**

**Genocide 0:4 / Expectations**

**

* * *

  
**

Major Misato Katsuragi sat in the cubicle that passed for her office. Her desk, usually stacked high with paperwork, was now empty. She was leaning forward on her chair, resting her head on the desk, folding her arms underneath it as a pillow, her eyes closed. She was tired, more tired than she had felt since the Angels had stopped showing up.

She could go home, Misato thought to herself, but then she would have to face the fallout. She would have to go up to Shinji and Asuka and admit to them that she had made a mistake.

It was painfully clear it had been a bad idea to have Asuka move back in. Almost as painful as it was to admit that Ritsuko had been right. Asuka should have stayed in Dogma, and as far away from Shinji as possible. Misato had thought it would be better for Asuka to have some company—after all the time she had spent alone in the hospital she had to want some company.

But Misato had been wrong, and now she had to pick up the pieces.

"Still moping?"

Misato recognized the voice instantly. She did not even bother to open her eyes to look at Dr. Ritsuko Akagi. She heard the blonde woman step into the room, her heels clicking.

"You can call it that, I guess," Misato said, her voice a low drawl. "I don't know what to do anymore. I just don't."

She heard Ritsuko pull a chair and sit in front of her desk.

"I should have listened to you, Ri-chan," Misato said miserably, unable to wait for the admonishment she knew had to be coming from her so-called friend. "You always know best."

"You couldn't have predicted this would happen, Misato." Ritsuko said, and for a second her comforting tone threw Misato for a loop.

Suddenly not believing this could be the same person whose inhumanity she'd come to despise, Misato opened her eyes. Sure enough it was Ritsuko. And she looked … sympathetic. For once she seemed like she was willing to listen.

And Misato could not hold onto her anguish any longer. "I don't know what to do. They are really gonna end up killing each other. I can't watch them all the time. I can't make them like each other. I can't even talk to Asuka without her hating me."

"I guess we should separate them," Ritsuko suggested. "I can get Asuka a place inside Central Dogma with just a phone call. Or I could give her a prescription if you think her mood has become the problem."

"I'm not going to have her medicated." Misato shook her head firmly. "It'll likely only make things worse. Besides, I DARE you to make her take anything she doesn't want to. You'd have an easier time trying to get a tank to stop on a dime."

Ritsuko didn't really have a sense of humor, but she did give Misato a grin. "I suppose you are right. What about staying at Central Dogma?"

"I don't want her to be alone, either. I think maybe I should try to get her to stay with a friend. Someone she won't try to kill."

"I imagine that's a very short list."

Indeed, Misato thought, a very short list. Asuka, for all her flamboyance, didn't really have any friends. Of course, it didn't really help that she thought she was better than anyone else, but Misato still found it remarkable that she'd managed to alienate even those closest to her. She was like a celebrity in that people wanted to be seen with her simply because of who she was, but her harsh personality made sure she wasn't really liked.

Shinji was the exact opposite, much more introverted and far less showy, and yet he did have people around him. Because at least he allowed them to stay.

Misato had the best intentions in bringing Asuka home. She thought she was doing her a favor by giving her the support she needed, the kindness she deserved. In reality, all she did was place an unfair burden on Shinji by expecting him to be able to deal with someone who, as wounded as she might be, could still lash out as violently as Asuka did.

"Well, I don't think I can help with this," Ritsuko added, noticing Misato was not responding. "You'd agree that human relations isn't my area of expertise."

Misato almost chuckled. That was as good as self-deprecating humor got for Ritsuko, and that she would recognize that in herself instead of offering her usually cold retorts told Misato she was taking the situation seriously.

"You know, you are such a good liar, Ritsuko Akagi," Misato said. "You walk around making everyone think you don't have a heart. But you are really a big softie."

Ritsuko made a face that indicated she didn't quite agree, but just as she was about to reply Misato heard a strange humming noise. The blonde reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a vibrating pager. "Duty calls," she said, getting to her feet. "Oh, when you decide what to do about Asuka let me know. I must be able to get in touch with her."

Pursing her lips, Misato fought the urge to think that might have been Ritsuko's real reason for talking to her. "I will." she scoffed. "Don't worry, this won't interfere with your project."

"See to it that it doesn't, Misato." Ritsuko said. "The Commander is displeased enough with Lazarus's setbacks. Problems with the children are the last thing we need now. It's important that we stick to our schedule."

Misato pressed her lips into a pout. "When are you going to tell me exactly what's going on?"

"When you need to know. Don't worry, it'll be sooner than you think. I wouldn't keep anything crucial from you, if only on the basis that I'm not a tactician and tactical abilities are required. The Commander understands that too."

Misato straightened up and locked her dark eyes with Ritsuko's. "In other words, you'll just ring your little bell when you need me."

The blonde doctor shook her head and smiled weakly. "You look like hell, Misato." She reached out with a hand and tousled Misato's long purple hair. "Get some sleep. If you don't want to go home, that's fine, but do get some rest."

"Nah, I think I'd rather have a beer."

Ritsuko shook her head disapprovingly and disappeared beyond the door into the hallway beyond, heels clicking away into silence.

Deciding that she wasn't going to help anyone by sitting around moping, Misato reached into one of her desk drawers and pulled out a little address book. To be honest, she should have already programmed the number she was looking for into her cell-phone. She had just never had the time; never thought to bother.

The name and number stared at her from the tiny page—her last resort. It was either this or Asuka would have no choice but to be alone. Only one person would take her in, as she had done before.

So, feeling ashamed that she would have to ask this again, Misato dialed Hikari Horaki.

* * *

The satellite pictures were displayed on the illuminated table in groups of three, each having been taken within 60 seconds of the others. A grid had been overlaid on top of the landscape, outlining contours and enhancing blurry shapes. Two rulers for scaling framed the top and left sides of the pictures, and helpful labels depicting altitude, latitude, and longitude were also shown.

Fuyutsuki did not need an analyst to be told what it was that he was looking at; the pictures showed an industrial complex surrounded by a sprawling network of railway lines like the spokes on a wheel. And on one of the lines was a strange humanoid shape, its head and broad shoulders distinctive despite the extreme bird's-eye view.

"So we can confirm that the Chinese have advanced their schedule?" the Sub-Commander asked, leaning closer over the table, hoping that perhaps he wasn't seeing what he suspected. There was no doubt, however. The humanoid shape was an Evangelion.

The Chinese-made Unit-A was indeed on its way to the Third Branch test facility outside Beijing.

"Yes. Our agent tells me that they will be ready for the first Unit-A activation test within the week, possibly even sooner than that," Commander Ikari said. "That is more than a month ahead of the plan."

Ikari wasn't poring over the photographs. It was likely, Fuyutsuki thought, that he'd studied them in advance, or that he simply knew enough to make any visual evidence unnecessary. He stood away from the table, half-covered in the shadows produced by the room's dim lighting.

To Fuyutsuki's immediate right was Ritsuko Akagi, her face glum. She said nothing as she examined the evidence. Like the two men in the room, she was keenly aware of the implications.

"Do we know that they intend to activate it?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"We have reason to believe that a pilot has been selected," Ikari said. "Nothing specific, only that certain arrangements have been made similar to our own selection and preparation procedures. My main concern is whether or not they intend to use the Tablet for the activation."

Doctor Akagi nodded. "We have to assume so. There's no reason they wouldn't."

"My God," Fuyutsuki muttered. "Can we be ready in five days?"

"We must." Ikari said. He turned his attention to Ritsuko. "Doctor, I want you to drop everything and focus on getting Unit-00 working. That should take priority over everything else. Nothing is as important. Revert to the old configuration as soon as possible and schedule a second activation."

"Rei is still in the hospital," Ritsuko said. "The effects of the previous contact have not been fully diagnosed."

"Is she physically capable of piloting Unit-00?" Ikari asked coldly.

"The body recovers very quickly." Ritsuko's reply didn't answer the question directly. She always gave a detached sense when talking about Rei, though she was supposed to be her responsibility. With her hands in her lab coat pockets she presented the image of the dedicated scientist, just like her mother had.

The apple didn't fall far from the tree, and Ritsuko Akagi had certainly inherited more than smarts and looks from Naoko. Fuyutsuki, who had now known them both for about the same amount of time, found the similarities uncanny.

"Her health status should be of no concern, then," Ikari said, betraying no emotion. "Lieutenant Ibuki is still looking for the root of the activation problems. She believes it's because of the complexity of the new programming, does she not? That should provide us with a plausible pretext for the overhaul."

"People are bound to ask uncomfortable questions," Ritsuko said. "Major Katsuragi in particular. I'm not sure how long I can keep lying to her."

"It won't matter in five days unless we exert the greatest effort. We have no choice. The current situation has to be dealt with first and foremost. Katsuragi's questions can wait."

That was the sort of dismissive attitude that had landed them in his mess, Fuyutsuki thought. But like a good second-in-command, he kept his fears to himself. Giving the Emerald Tablet to the Chinese had been a calculated risk—they had to be given something to ensure their cooperation as long as NERV needed it. At the same time, however, they were given specific instructions and time-lines. The current scenario depended on them.

Ikari hadn't trusted the Chinese Branch to do entirely as they were told, but he had depended on them to follow the schedule and had dismissed the idea that they were simply too self-interested to obey even that. It could now prove to be just as deadly a sin.

"With your permission, then, I will assemble a team and proceed with Unit-00's re-fit," Ritsuko said. "I would much rather get started sooner than later. I will also look into clearing Rei for a second activation test as soon as possible. Unless you have any objections."

Ikari looked at her sternly for a moment, a look that was both a warning and a threat. "None." He then turned to Fuyutsuki. "Maintain a link to the UN's spy satellites and keep an eye on our Chinese friends. I don't want any more surprises."

"As ordered," the Sub-Commander answered. "Should we alert the Security Council?"

Ikari thought about his answer for a long, silent moment—he wasn't the heartless maniac people seemed to think he was, after all. Then, he shook his head and said heavily, "Foreknowledge denotes complicity."

Fuyutsuki understood.

It was a terrible thing, but he understood.

* * *

"Asuka's gone to school," Misato said from the doorway. Her voice was meant to be comforting, Shinji was sure, but he felt no comfort from it. "She'll be staying with Hikari for now. I don't know if she'll be coming back."

It was early in the morning, around the time when Shinji would normally be up and getting ready for school. Asuka would be on his heels, barking orders left and right—make breakfast, make bentos, put your shoes on, normal stuff—and Misato would look on them from the kitchen table wondering how they managed to make it work every day.

They didn't—they never had. Their interactions were the result of their characters, hers domineering and his subservient, and existed only because they had to. They had never managed to come to terms with another. Not as teens, not as roommates, not even as Eva pilots. Was it surprising at all that they couldn't live together?

Shinji lay on his bed, facing the wall so that his back was to Misato. His S-DAT had died during the night and he hadn't felt like changing the batteries. From that point on his only companion had been the silence; he had waited in vain for sleep to relief him of his thoughts.

He had already been awake for hours when Misato knocked on his bedroom door. Hearing no reply, she had quietly slid it open. Unlike Asuka, he'd never bothered installing a lock.

He wished now that he had.

Misato was looking at him, and he could almost see the pity in her eyes. He could feel it. And it made the guilt harder to bear. He didn't deserve it—if she only knew what he'd said to Asuka she wouldn't pity him. Even if she knew the redhead had said it to him first, even if she knew Asuka had tried to strangle him. She would despise him, too.

Behind him Misato sighed, realizing he wasn't going to answer her. "Shinji, I understand that some things are hard to talk about. But that doesn't mean you should keep them to yourself. And you do have people around you who are willing to listen."

She paused, perhaps to give him a chance to say something. To refute her, maybe, or to tell her how she was wrong and how alone he really was.

"Maybe you could go see Rei?" Misato suggested. "She's well enough to see you, I think. I'm sure she'd like to have you visit. It'd make her feel better. Don't worry about school, I'll make something up. That always works."

Shinji stared at the wall. He could not, however, ignore the fact that Rei would indeed be the one he could talk to without feeling worse than he did now. Everyone else would drive stake of guilt deeper.

Rei—it was because he defended her that Asuka had got upset in the first place. What else was he supposed to do? Shinji could tolerate Asuka being abusive towards him—her insults and her punches had become the routine—but for her to treat Rei that way was more than even the human doormat could bear. He'd done what he thought he needed to do. He'd only thrown Asuka's own words back at her. They were hurtful words, but they were HER words. She'd only been on the receiving end of the same kind of spite she used on everyone else.

That's what it felt like to have someone tell you they hated you, that they wanted you to die. Like she herself had done to Rei.

"This is just like what happened with that boy, isn't it?" Misato said. "You felt like it was your fault, even though nobody would blame you. I'm not your mother, Shinji. I know that. I'm not going to tell you everything will be alright. But what I can tell you is that it will never get better unless you decide to make an effort."

"His named was Kaoru," Shinji said suddenly. It was the first time he spoke to her that morning. "That boy—his name was Kaoru."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you." She hesitated. "Just think about what I said. Don't let this be like before. You don't have to. You are not alone."

Shinji heard her move away, the sound of her footsteps slightly muted by her stockings, and then he heard his bedroom door sliding closed. Misato would be going to work and probably wouldn't be coming back until very late. For all practical purposes she was gone for good. He was alone, whatever she might say. He felt alone.

* * *

Hyuga yawned loudly, stretching his arms like someone who'd just gotten out of bed, then turned to Misato. "Sorry," he apologized. "I didn't get any sleep last night.

"No need to be polite around me." Misato dismissed him with a shake of her head, wishing that by now he'd grown used to being less formal with her. She wasn't going to call him on it or anything. "Ritsuko insisted Unit-00 should be worked on overnight, didn't she?"

"Yeah, me and about very other tech she could find. She seems to have found another gear. I don't know how she does it."

They were outside Central Dogma since this was the only fairly secure location. But instead of meeting on the watermelon field, Misato had driven them a good distance from NERV HQ to a small clearing south of the pyramid where they now stood, leaning on the side of her car. She had been quiet all the way up to now.

"She's a workaholic," Misato said snippily. "I think she assumes everyone around her is as well. If you ask me I think that's an impossibly high standard to expect from people. Any idea about the rush?"

"Only guesswork. I know it was something to do with China. Well, it could be anything really, but our link with the Chinese branch has been on non-stop like we are waiting for something. I have no clue about what is going on over there. But some people are starting to get really mad."

Misato frowned suspiciously. "The Chinese have an Eva, right?"

"Do you want the official or the unofficial answer?" Hyuga shifted his weight, turning so that he was leaning slightly on his side, facing her. "That's what worries me, actually. I have a pen-pal, you see. Inside the Chinese Branch."

Given how much time he spent in front of a computer, Misato was not surprised to hear that. "Lots of counterfeit movies have come from that friendship, I trust."

He didn't acknowledge the joke, not the hidden implication that it might possible to get something out this supposed person.

"Unfortunately, my contact is located in Shanghai, not Beijing—a little out of the loop you might say. But he's been awfully quiet these last few days," Hyuga said gravely, looking at the pyramidal building in the distance. "The UN advisors are going crazy, like everyone else, but the Chinese have only said that they are conducting an experiment. Then even people on the inside who would normally be able to send messages out are prevented from doing so. I might be reading too much into it, of course, but I don't have to tell you what might happen if China gets to make Unit-A operational."

"The balance is disrupted," Misato said quietly.

"Precisely," Hyuga continued. "China was never supposed to keep an Evangelion, remember? They were to build one and turn it over to the UN, like Germany. And India and Pakistan are horrified at the prospect of China having an Eva. Russia seems indifferent, though, but you know the Russians. What is really troubling is the fact that China has been ignoring all proper channels of communication and the government still claims it's just for research purposes, when we know that it isn't."

"Research of what?" Misato replied, folding her arms. "Why? They have to know we know they're lying."

"God only knows," Hyuga said. "I'd imagine the UN fears that China is doing weapons testing with the Eva. This creates a nightmare scenario: India, Pakistan and Russia are nuclear powers. If they think China is planning something against them they'll hit the panic button."

"And everyone goes boom, from weapons they're not even supposed to have. You gotta love the modern age," Misato said with a lot of bitterness. More that Hyuga seemed to think the situation called for.

"Major, is there something wrong?" he suddenly asked, though not to Misato's surprise; Hyuga was nothing if not attentive.

She shook her head slowly. "Nothing."

Hyuga made a face, hinting concern over curiosity. "Major … you know, we don't always have to talk about stuff like this. I wouldn't mind if you wanted to, well, if you needed someone to vent."

"It's not that you haven't earned my trust, Hyuga," Misato said, carefully treading waters she was not very comfortable in, aware that saying the wrong thing might give him the wrong impression. She didn't want to push him away, but also didn't want to draw him closer. "You have my trust. You are probably the only one I CAN trust. It's just difficult to talk about personal feelings with anyone. Particularly feelings that are ... less than pleasant."

"Is it something to do with the Children?"

Yeah, she was so predictable, Misato thought sourly. Really there were only a few things that got to her the same way that her two teen wards did. Ritsuko had once accused her of wanting to play surrogate mother because it would help her life feel less empty. Misato had to agree there was an element of truth there, but she didn't see how caring for other people could possibly be a bad thing. She still didn't think it was, whatever her present feelings. Shinji and Asuka represented part of a life she couldn't have, which she didn't even know she wanted until she'd taken them under her wing.

But they weren't family, and her feelings were little more than stand-ins to fill in the void. To make her feel better. Unlike a real mother whose duty it was to keep her family together, all Misato could do to help was break it apart.

"Have you been giving it some though?" Misato asked, still sounding slightly bitter despite being guiltily aware that Hyuga didn't deserve it. "Or did you come up with that assumption just now?"

He was taken aback, his manner changing apologetically, and Misato utterly hated herself. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, just like Shinji would.

And it was holding that mental image, that of the brown-haired Third Child lying disconsolate in bed, and of what she had told him before about opening up to people that she realize it was okay for her to do the same. Shinji was never as alone as he thought—he had Rei Ayanami. And so Misato had Hyuga.

She turned around, leaning tiredly forward and folding her arms on top of the car. She didn't take her eyes away from Hyuga, as if trying to measure his sincerity. "Yeah, it's the Children," Misato said finally. "They had a fight."

"But you've said they are always fighting," Hyuga said.

"No, this is different," Misato replied. "I had to send Asuka to stay with a friend. I had no other choice."

"I'm sure you did what was best," Hyuga said, clearly trying to make his superior feel better. But it was a line Misato had all but grown immune to.

"I don't know what they said to each other. When Shinji told me what happened he was his reluctant to say much. He said they fought, but wouldn't tell me anything more. I know it was bad. I can't blame him, can I? He goes out of his way to avoid confrontation. But Asuka … when Asuka wants to hurt she knows exactly what to say. And she won't even look at me—that's nothing new, really. This morning I found her sitting in the kitchen, wiping tears out of her eyes. She yelled when I asked what was wrong. You know her, she has to be strong. She can't possibly let anyone near her. Even though she had hurt Shinji just as much, I wanted so bad to just ... tell her it's okay to cry, and just hold her. But I couldn't ..."

As the words spilled out of her so did the emotions, and before she knew it the hardened facade of NERV's Chief of Operations had fallen away and left only Misato Katsuragi, the woman who had never really grown up, the would-be mother who couldn't take care of herself let alone two young teenagers that hated each other.

She buried her face on her folded arms, fighting to keep the tears at bay. A fight she was quickly losing. "I can't do anything for Asuka. I can't do anything for Shinji. I never could. I just ask things from them—ask them to risk their lives, ask them to suffer—but I can't do anything to repay their sacrifice. They deserve better ... they deserve better than me."

Hyuga stood by silently until she finished, and she was convinced he would be disgusted to have his superior officer break down in such an unsightly fashion. His silence was proof that he didn't approve.

But then he moved closer, placing an arm on top of the car next to her. "Says who, Major?" he told her kindly. "Who could want anything more than someone who cares for them?"

Misato opened her eyes, lifting her head. The world had become blurry as seen through the distortion of her tears. She wiped them away on a red sleeve. "It isn't that simple. Caring for them is easy, it comes naturally, but I should do more than that. I should be able to help them."

"Major, I wouldn't ever want to presume I know what to do, but don't you think that, maybe, you being there for them already is a lot of help. You can't force anyone to accept help if they don't want it, but they know it's there if they need it."

Misato could tell he really meant it, too. It wasn't the sort of artificial kindness people were so prone to giving one another without any real feeling behind. Strangely, it made her feel at once comforted and saddened: the former because she was assured of his sincerity, the later because whatever she might think of him he would never replace Kaji in her heart.

This was why she had spent the last few months focusing on work and, above all, to preserve Kaji's quest for truth—it was much easier to deal with long-buried secrets than personal ones.

"I don't know," Misato said, forcing herself to regain he composure. "Could we not do this right now, Hyuga? Talking about the Children, I mean."

He seemed puzzled, as if trying to decide between pushing the issue thinking it would do her good or just dropping it completely. Again, his concern for her was painfully obvious. "Sure, Major," the operator said finally. "Anything you wish."

Misato gave him a nod of gratitude.

"So, um, would you like me to find out more about what the Chinese are up to?" Hyuga said.

"No," Misato's reply was almost immediate. She couldn't have cared less. "Whatever they are up to doesn't concern us. They have obviously chosen to play around with something they don't understand. It's their funeral."

* * *

Hikari Horaki felt lonely and maybe that was why she had accepted to have Asuka move in with her again. Her older sister, the person closest to her, had left for Kyoto after the explosion that leveled part of Tokyo-3 rather than stay in a war zone. Hikari had no such freedom of choice. Though she would have gone with Kodama in a heartbeat, her father depended on NERV for work and so he remained behind along with Hikari and her younger sister.

When Misato had called late the previous night to tell her that Asuka was moving out and needed a place to stay, she'd said that Asuka and Shinji had a fight. She wouldn't say over what, however, or what made this particular fight so nasty that they couldn't stay together anymore. The teen pilots were always arguing and fighting like an old married couple—much like she and Toji had, and still did whenever she visited him in the hospital.

It had taken some convincing, but finally her father had agreed to let her bring Asuka in. He'd never even met her the previous time because he always worked so much, Hikari argued, so he wouldn't know she was there, and with Kodama gone it wasn't like they didn't have space. Misato had warned her that Asuka would need some attention, but Hikari kept that to herself. Having gotten permission, she'd phoned Misato and the Major arranged for some of the redhead's things to be taken over.

Misato had said Asuka would meet her at school, but the German girl never showed up. Actually, none of the three children attended that day. Hikari couldn't help worrying—it was in her nature.

Unfortunately, she wasn't just being morose; Asuka really had problems. No matter if she had managed to pull herself together and lead a somewhat normal life after what had happened to her. She deserved a lot credit for that, even admiration. But she had problems.

Hikari, having never experienced the kind of trauma Asuka had endured, could not really relate to her on the sort of level she would've wanted. And as Asuka had cried herself to sleep that night, Hikari had been utterly unable to comfort her. She had felt useless and undeserving. There she was, supposedly caring for someone and yet managed to do nothing in the end. She was the worst sort of friend.

Selfish as it might seem, Hikari knew when Misato called that she wanted to fix that. She wanted a second chance to be there for Asuka.

She waited for her friend for nearly an hour after school, but Asuka never came, so Hikari decided to walk home. Maybe something had happened, she thought. Maybe Misato had left a message.

Hikari walked down the narrow sidewalk, careful to avoid running into people, and passed in front of the small arcade located on the corner. The place was popular with most students, providing a welcome break after a day full of schoolwork. Hikari had never been big on video games—the only reason she even bought a console was for dating sims—but she and Asuka had hung out there a few times, along with the Three Stooges.

As she peered fleetingly through the front window, Hikari recognized the figure engaged over one of the flashy, loud machines. Her golden-red hair and pointy scarlet hairclips gave her away.

She was wearing her uniform, too; she had certainly left for school that morning as Misato said she would. Hikari sighed, and made her way into the arcade.

"Asuka?" Hikari called shyly, walking over to her distracted friend. She was playing a shooting game, her favorite genre.

Asuka turned her head and gazed at her friend with dull eyes, so much so that they seemed a completely different shade of blue. They were the eyes of someone who had been through a deeply personal tragedy. Hikari could not believe this was the same cheerful, outgoing person she had befriended. How could a mere fight with Shinji Ikari have done this to her?

"Uh...hi, Hikari." Asuka forced herself to smile.

"Hi," Hikari said. Checking out the arcade screen she noticed the initials ALS held all of the Top Ten records—all dated within the last few hours. "Did … did you go to school at all? I've been really worried. Misato told me that..."

"School didn't seem important," Asuka said flatly. She returned her attention to the game, moving the controls with short, practiced movements.

"Well, I thought something happened to you."

Asuka did not reply to that.

Hikari swallowed awkwardly, uncertain of how far she should allow her curiosity to push the issue. "Misato told me that you and Shinji...had problems."

Hikari found more meaning in the heavy silence that followed those rather than on the words themselves. Asuka was many things, but she wasn't coy, and she didn't avoid a subject as blatantly as she was doing now. Normally, she'd try to deflect attention, to deny that something was bothering her and haughtily pretend she was fine. This time there was no pretense in her body language; she wasn't fine.

The freckled girl decided to change the subject.

"You know, I've been really wanting to talk to you for a long time. About what happened before with the Eva in the city. But it's not really important now, I guess. Ever since you came out of the hospital I've just been glad to have you around." She paused and smiled amicably. "So, are you moving in with me after all?"

Hikari reached out a hand intuitively in a gesture of support.

Asuka quickly pulled away. "I told Misato not to bother you with that," the redhead said defensively. "I can go elsewhere."

She turned her head, no longer focusing on the flashing screen but on the window beyond. Hikari could not see her eyes or her expression, only her stiff body language. The Class Rep. was not at all surprised by this behavior. Any of the girls who shallowly hung around Asuka would have given up right then and there, thinking her a lost case and not worth the trouble.

But Hikari was not one of them; where other girls might envy Asuka for her popularity she had long ago gotten used to playing second fiddle to her friend's idol status; she didn't mind that when they were together there was hardly a glance spared in her direction instead of the exotic, sharp-featured, sapphire-eyed redhead. There was no sense in denying that Asuka was simply prettier all-around, and that Hikari, with freckles and her hair in two pig-tails, was no comparison.

The only reason the popular Eva pilot had been drawn to socialize with the Class Rep. in the first place was because of her position as an authority figure. Asuka held extremely high standards for people, matching the almost impossible standard she set for herself. If people didn't measure up then they were not good enough for her. That was Asuka. And as elitist as that attitude might be outwardly, it was not Hikari's place to judge her based solely on it.

Because, like an frozen, unforgiving iceberg, there was a lot more to Asuka beneath the surface.

Their relationship, for example. Hikari knew she meant more to Asuka, even if she refused to admit it, and that Asuka meant more to her. It was no longer a matter of status or standards; there was true fondness between them, tolerance, understanding, a real friendship.

And Hikari knew that was just the sort of thing Asuka needed to hear.

"You know, Asuka …" Hikari gently placed her hand on Asuka's shoulder. "I am your friend, for better or worse. You are … you are like one of my sisters. You are family. And family members are supposed to look after one another. I understand if maybe you feel embarrassed, but there's nothing to be embarrassed about. I will always look up to you. I'll always want to help you."

"I'm not your sister." Asuka shrugged her off. "I don't have any family. I don't need family."

"Do it for me then," Hikari said. "I told you Kodama moved out, right? I need someone to talk to, you know, about girl stuff. I need someone told tell me if my outfit matches my shoes. I need someone to tell me how I could do better than being just a boring class representative. Someone I can trust."

"You mean you need a bigger sister," Asuka said snidely.

"Well, since you put it that way …"

"I don't want to be a burden," Asuka said, dipping her head slightly.

"Don't be silly. I'd be honored. Pen-pen will be happy to see you too. I can tell he misses you." It was a syrupy thing to say, almost cliché in its simplicity, but it was heartfelt. Asuka seemed to agree as she suddenly lowered her guard and let a little hint of appreciation enter her voice.

Asuka took a long time to think about what was really being offered. Hikari didn't pretend to sneak some sympathy bellow the redhead's radar, but she did hope to make her realize that it was okay to accept a little comfort. Hikari reached again for her friend's shoulder to make her point. When Asuka didn't object, the pigtailed girl knew she had succeeded.

She smiled. "Lets go. Some of your things are probably already waiting for you."

The two schoolgirls stepped outside together and walked side by side to the train station. Hikari was careful not to look terribly concerned, though she could help casting appraising look at Asuka as the walked, quickly looking away when she thought the other girl might see her. Asuka would normally be rightly annoyed by such behavior. Now she said nothing.

That was the thing that upset Hikari the most—her silence, her brooding, miserable silence. And she wondered again what Shinji Ikari could have done to hurt her so badly.

* * *

"A-Ayanami?" Shinji hesitated as he caught sight of Rei Ayanami, who sat on a wheelchair in the middle of the hallway leading to her hospital room, wearing only a white gown and a tired expression. She was talking with Doctor Akagi—rather, Doctor Akagi was talking to her—and he could not help being surprised. He'd not realized that there might be someone else with the First Child when he came to see her, which was stupid in hindsight. He'd even brought flowers, a fact he now found himself feeling very embarrassed about.

"What is it, Shinji?" Ritsuko said. As usual, her voice was cold, her expression clinical as she looked him over.

Rei remained silent besides her, as if she hadn't noticed him at all.

"Um, I ... I wanted to see how Rei was doing and ... " Shinji stuttered, his cheeks warming up to a deep crimson blush. Overcome by his self-consciousness, he didn't dare move a muscle and stood there firmly glued to the spot.

"And you brought her flowers, how charming," Ritsuko said in a sharp tone that sounded slightly amused. She then turned to Rei, and Shinji noticed the much smaller girl had her head bowed and was looking at the floor. "Don't you think so, Rei?"

"Yes," Rei answered obediently.

Being passive was part of her nature, but her manner seemed different now. Not passive as much as it was utterly submissive. Blue hair disheveled, red eyes down, she looked like someone who'd just been picked up from an orphan shelter. Someone without power, without desire, without anything to call her own—even the hospital gown fit her poorly, as if the act of clothing her had merely been an afterthought.

Ritsuko patted Rei on her head, a gesture that coming from anyone else might have been affectionate. But coming from Ritsuko Akagi it carried all the detached satisfaction of petting an obedient dog after performing a successful trick.

Rei did not lift her head or look at her, her face remaining neutral. Like everything else, if she was bothered at being condescended upon she didn't show it.

Shinji swallowed awkwardly, wanting to say something but not knowing what.

"I suppose you want to talk to her alone, right?" Ritsuko said, turning again to Shinji, putting her hands in her pockets in a familiar manner, and walking towards Shinji. "Just don't take too long. Rei, don't forget what I told you."

She said this last part as she moved past the Third Child, without so much as looking back at Rei. Shinji half expected her to whistle and for Rei to follow at her heels.

Shinji waited for Ritsuko to disappear around the corner before cautiously approaching the blue-haired girl. Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about looking her in the eyes as hers were still firmly focused on her tiled floor. "Um …"

He offered her the flowers, red roses because it was apparently the only kind easily available in Tokyo-3.

Rei lifted her gaze, but a questioning expression came over her soft features—barely an expression, really, wondering why he was giving them to her without an obvious reason. "Flowers?"

"I-I just thought that...well, the hospital can be very depressing so..." Shinji began hesitantly, struggling to get the right words, "I thought these might cheer you up."

No one had ever given her flowers before, Shinji was sure of that much. Rei was probably wondering what was she supposed to do with them. Even so, she took them regardless, not saying a word.

"They are red," Shinji continued, feeling stupid for pointing out something so obvious. "I thought they would look nice...and they match your eyes."

"I do not like red," Rei said innocently, unaware of the effect those words would have on Shinji.

The boy froze, wondering desperately if he had made a mistake in bringing the roses. An awkward silence settled over the hallway, until finally …

"S-sorry, I...didn't know..."

"But they look nice," Rei replied. "What do I do with them?"

Shinji raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you put them in water or they'll die," he said.

"I see."

"Uh...Rei?" he started timidly, remembering what Misato had said and what she'd suggested he do. He didn't really think he had a choice. The memory of what he'd told Asuka was too painful, too overwhelming. Keeping it to himself was more than he thought he could endure.

"Yes?"

"I need to...talk to you about something important. You are the only one I can talk to. You are the only one I know will listen to me." He looked nervously down the hallway. "So could I..."

Rei didn't answer right away, which made Shinji wonder if he was intruding on her. He thought she might not have been listening to him, since she was staring at the roses, but the odd sense of detachment was nothing new. No, if she didn't say anything it was because she didn't want to.

"I-I'm sorry..." Shinji apologized, all he could think of doing. "I didn't mean to impose on you. I'll leave you alone."

Shinji turned to leave, but Rei called to him.

"Ikari," Rei whispered, "you can come in if you want. My room is the second door on the left."

Shinji had spent enough in NERV's medical ward that he already knew much of the layout. The nurses knew him on sight, though he'd never learned their names. It was, like most hospitals, a somewhat depressing place despite its benign function. The bright lights and polished tile floors belied the pain that these very walls were built to treat.

He wheeled Rei down the hallway, following her directions until they reached a room with the name Ayanami R. written on a chart hanging on the door. The room looked depressing, almost entirely bare except for the bed and a few small pieces of furniture. Unlike the large room Asuka had been kept in during her coma, Rei's was much smaller and closer to what might have been deemed ordinary with none of the complex life support equipment.

Asuka had required more constant attention in her condition than Rei now did. She had been completely dependant on those around her. Helpless.

Shinji felt a new pang of guilt. He hadn't thought about that for the longest time—about what he had nearly done when the unconscious redhead had laid sprawled, half naked in front of him. He hoped the nurse on duty that day, who certainly must have found Asuka on the bed after he left, had never told her. But it wasn't because he feared her anger. Asuka simply didn't deserve the humiliation such an episode would cause her.

Rei Ayanami, ironically, probably wouldn't have cared.

Closing the door behind them, Shinji pushed the wheelchair-bound girl to the foot of her bed. He carefully placed her left arm around his shoulders to help her up and onto the bed. She was surprisingly light, her skin cold against his.

"Would you like me to put those in water?" he asked her, gesturing towards the flowers she still cradled on her lap.

"I do not have anything to put water in," Rei replied.

Shinji looked around, spotting used plastic dinnerware placed on a tray by her bedside. "A big glass will do, I guess."

He picked up the plastic glass, walked over to the small bathroom, and gave it a rinse under the sink faucet. He then filled it with water and returned to Rei's side, holding out the glass for her to put the flowers in it. She did, and he placed them down on her nightstand. He found a chair nearby and pulled it close.

"So, uh, Rei … I need to talk to you," Shinji said as he sat there uncertain about what to do with himself.

"Go ahead," Rei said, but did not turn to face him. She was staring at the roses in a strangely disconnected manner.

However, Shinji knew she was listening. He struggled to find the words that would properly and coherently explain all the things he was feeling. It took him a while, but he did at last.

"I...I had a fight...with Asuka," he began, focusing on Rei's form. He felt exposed even though she was the one who was nearly naked. His insides felt raw, vulnerable. "And I said things that I shouldn't have...and she...cried."

Rei said nothing, but her red eyes shifted slightly, and her head barely tilted.

"I-I feel horrible. It's not like when we fought before. It's not like when she calls me stupid. Now it's...painful. She shouldn't have said the things she said to you—there's no excuse for saying that even if it's to someone you don't like. I … said them right back at her. I told her I hated her. I told her …" a whimper escaped his lips. "I told her I wanted her to die. And she cried. I made her cry."

Rei still said nothing, and even though Shinji knew it wasn't real he thought he saw in her otherwise neutral eyes a reflection of his own guilt. And for a fleeting second, the red became sapphire blue in his mind's eye and he saw Asuka staring back at him, tears streaming down her pretty face.

That image alone was like a punch to the stomach, because in that very moment Shinji had wounded her more severely than Angels or Evas ever had. Asuka had suffered a lot in her life, having fallen from grace as a child prodigy with the world at her feet to a devastated and bitter teenager. But despite her anger and her haughtiness and her prickly character and everything else that might have influenced her to become the girl she was, Shinji had never seen that look before.

Because that look, that single moment of painful sorrow, encapsulated all that was wrong in their relationship. All the things he had always felt but never said.

"I shouldn't have… " Shinji barely managed, feeling stinging tears rolling down his own cheeks, "But she... she can be so mean. She had no right to say those things to you … but I had no right to say them to her." He leaned forward, burying his face in his hands, weeping. "I had no right … please, forgive me."

"Forgiveness is not mine to give," Rei said.

Those words, like a drink of cool water on a hot day, had soothing quality that reached beyond the words themselves and touched something else.

Shinji looked up, slightly dumfounded. "Uh?"

Rei was staring at him now, her gaze easy and non-judgmental. "You can ask me for forgiveness, but I have no reason to forgive you. You have done nothing to me that would require it. If you feel it is the Second who should forgive you, then you should go to her and ask her to do so instead."

"I can't." He shook his head, sniffling and wiping away tears with his hands. "I can't go to her. She hates me. She—"

"She is who she is," the albino replied. "And she does not have to forgive you. It is not an obligation."

"But …" Shinji simpered, "what's the point in apologizing to someone if they will just hate you for it?"

"Will it make you feel better?"

After that Shinji fell silent, uncertain about the answer and its implication. It would make him feel better, but that was just his selfishness. It wouldn't help Asuka, and it wouldn't make _her_ feel better. And so he would only fuel her hatred of him, gaining nothing else.

"People make themselves what they want to be, not what others wish them to be," Rei said. "I can only be me, and no one else. You accept me for being me, so you should accept her for being her."

Shinji didn't understand how that could help. He'd tried to accept Asuka, finally resigning himself to letting her be alone, because he was sure that was what she wanted of him. He'd tried to accept that even though he didn't like her attitude or her abrasive personally as a whole, those were qualities that made the Second Child the girl she was. All she had to do was be a little nicer to him, a little more thoughtful, and he would have gladly repaid her kindness several times over.

But Asuka would do none of those things. Because she hated him. And after what he'd said, maybe she did indeed have a right to.

The silence lasted several minutes in which Shinji tried to compose himself.

"Is that all?" Rei finally said.

Her voice was soft as always, but Shinji was suddenly taken aback by her bluntness. "Y-yes..."

"Then I think you should go." She lay back on her pillow and stared at the ceiling, not caring to cover herself with the thin bed sheets. There was no indication of antagonism coming from her, nor was there any sense that he was bothering her. And yet …

"Rei, are you...angry with me?" he couldn't help asking. In his present state he didn't think he could take someone else rejecting him.

"No, why should I be?" Rei answered calmly. "The doctor told me to rest for the next activation test."

"Activation?" Shinji stared at her in disbelief. "So soon?"

"You will not make a scene, will you?"

Shinji wasn't stupid, no matter what Asuka liked to say, and so he'd never believed the tests would be stopped for something as seemingly unimportant as Rei getting hurt. But what purpose could they achieve by putting her back in the Eva when she was still bedridden?

NERV—his Father couldn't possibly think she was so disposable. She was a pilot, but also a teenager, someone like him, someone like Asuka, and her life had value too. But any outrage was futile, and he was already too emotionally exhausted. There was nothing he could do about it now. He couldn't protect her; couldn't speak for her; couldn't apologize. He was useless to her, same as with everyone else.

The waves of heavy feelings pushed down on him, making him sink on the chair, shoulders slumped, head down.

"I have to pilot Eva," Rei said, turning her head and looking blankly into space. "There is nothing else I can do. It is the reason I exist."

* * *

Wearing her pink cotton pajamas in the middle of the day was as embarrassing as it was liberating. Hikari could not remember the last time she'd been home this late aside from weekends and sick days, and even then she didn't tend to linger in her PJs through the morning. She'd awoken early as usual, but between seeing Nozomi off to school and waiting for Asuka to get out of bed had ended up parked in front of the TV in the living room, another thing she didn't usually do.

Asuka was a guest, and so Hikari didn't mind accommodating her. But it was pushing noon now, and there was still no sign of the noisy redhead coming down the stairs to have breakfast. Or lunch.

Hikari sighed, laid down the remote control on the couch next to her, and got up. She slipped her feet into her pink slippers and headed up the stairs. Since Kodama had left there was a spare bedroom next to Hikari's. And since she knew Asuka valued her privacy as much as anyone she'd ever met, she had taken a room to herself.

In was in her upbringing, Hikari thought tolerantly. Western cultures did not believe in sharing one's personal space with others. Asuka, raised in Germany for most her childhood, fit that particular mold perfectly.

Hikari knocked on the door. There was no response, nor had she expected any to be forthcoming; Asuka, though she didn't say it, wanted to be left alone. It was that, more than the possibility that she might have overslept, that prompted Hikari to check on her. As the door had no lock, knocking to let her know she was coming in was just courtesy.

"Time to get up," she said. "It's nearly noon, you know."

Hikari slid the door open, stepped inside, then softly closed the door behind her. The room was mostly as Kodama had left it—she couldn't take many of her things with her to Kyoto. City apartments were minuscule things. The thing that had always struck Hikari about her sister's room was the cleanliness, even by her own standards. Everything had its place, everything seemed to match every other thing. Even now, the only things that stood out were a backpack thrown hastily at the foot of a dresser, and a white and blue school uniform draped over the back of a chair.

In the few days Asuka had been here she hadn't bothered putting anything away, simply discarding things as she used them and generally making a mess. Hikari cleaned up after her; it was okay, she didn't mind.

"_Kodama would be outraged_," Hikari thought in slight amusement. She took a knee and picked up the backpack, setting it carefully in the chair. The content was mostly clothing and underwear, and a few toiletries. Asuka's Section 2 bodyguards had brought over another suitcase but she hadn't gone near it yet. Finally, Hikari turned her attention to the bed.

Asuka lay curled under the sheets, her slender form covered but unmistakable, her pale feet and a sheet of flaring locks from her golden-red mane visible at either end. Even as she stood over her, Hikari could hear the animated rhythm of the music she was listening to blaring through her headphones, the volume turned up as high as it would go. Pen-Pen was lying on his stomach next to the bed, his small beady eyes closed.

Hikari sighed again and sat beside her friend on the bed, careful not to step on the dozing penguin. She reached underneath the sheets, finding the little digital music player and switching it off with a thumb. Asuka did not stir. Hikari turned her head away, keeping her eyes on the room rather than on the covered girl.

"I know you can hear me, Asuka," she said. "It's time to get up."

"What for?" Asuka's voice was raspy but still low, not the usual shrill tone. Odd.

"Well, it's a sunny day," Hikari said, "and since neither one of us is going to school I thought maybe you'd want to do something fun. No point in missing school again if we are just going to be inside all day."

"I didn't ask you to stay."

"How could I go anywhere?" Hikari said. "After what I said."

"If you want to be mad at me then go ahead, I don't care. I don't care about anything."

She sounded like she meant it, too, which worried Hikari. Asuka was not suicidal by any stretch, but she did have a self-destructive streak. She'd run away once before, and while the circumstances of how she was eventually taken back into custody were not known to Hikari, she was smart enough to relate the onset of her depression with her lengthy hospitalization.

She had heard some rumors, the sort that seemed to come out of thin air: the Second Child had been found sitting in a bathtub full of filthy water, naked and starved as though she had simply stopped caring about herself. Such a scene was something worse than Hikari could imagine. It couldn't be true; no matter how bad things got, the Asuka she knew would never sink that low.

But then again, she didn't really know anything about Asuka, did she?

"You know," Hikari started, making an effort to get her talking, "I never asked you this, but what was it like? When you came to Japan, I mean. Is it what you thought it'd be like? Is it very different from Germany? Do you miss your friends?"

"I was fourteen when I graduated college. I didn't have any friends. I was the youngest girl in every class I ever took. The boys would look at me, but not one of them ever approached me. I was taboo for them. Fine, men are pigs anyway. My teachers despised me because I was smarter than they were. I had all the answers. I made them look bad. After I moved into the dorm I never went back home, but that was fine too. When I was little my stepmother only ever looked after me to be close to my father. It was all a charade. My whole life's been like that."

As she rambled, the tone of her voice changed erratically, as though it was difficult for her to control it. Hikari noticed her stirring under the sheets, moving her hands up to where her face would be. The sheets were thin, and she thought Asuka might be further covering her face out of shame.

"Come on, Asuka. Everything can't be so bad," Hikari said, fighting the urge to actually reach out and comfort her—Asuka didn't like to be touched in any manner that would indicate weakness. "You have to believe that things will work out. You'll go back to pilot your Eva. Maybe have a talk with Shinji."

"It's ... okay," Asuka muttered. "I'm used to it. I deserve it."

"No, Asuka…"

"That day … that day I got in the Eva, the Angel showed me what I was like. It made me realize … that I deserved it." Asuka curled up tighter, drawing the sheets along as she tucked in her knees and her arms.

"Nobody deserves to be hurt like that." Oddly enough, Hikari thought of Toji, and all the pain and hurt that had brought along. But despite that, the times she went to see him during weekends were the happiest she could remember. So pain did not exist in a vacuum, and it could eventually lead to happiness.

Hikari had managed that strictly on her own, through no fault of Asuka's or her sisters. And she was sure that with her help the haughty redhead could do the same.

"It's stupid, really," Asuka continued. "It showed me … I should've known when I kissed him. I knew what I wanted, and that he wouldn't give it to me. But I didn't know why. I pretended like I didn't care—it was such a stupid thing to cry over." Her voice quivered, and Hikari heard her sniffle. "I can't pretend anymore, Hikari. I don't want to."

"So don't," Hikari said, looking down at her intently for the first time. "The first step in being honest with others is being honest with yourself. Sounds to me like you've already managed that."

"No." Asuka shook her head on her pillow. "It's too late."

Hikari could not ignore the signs any longer. She had to do something. Carefully, she reached down and picked up the edge of Asuka's sheet, and pulled it back just enough to see her face. But what she saw made her gasp. The crystal blue orbs were surrounded by bloodshot white, her high cheeks were streaked, and the pillow was stained where it had absorbed her tears. Her face was set, that determined expression of someone trying to retain their composure. "How long have you been …"

"That's none of you business," Asuka snatched the sheet from her hand and tossed it over her head again. "Leave me alone."

But Hikari didn't move. She sat there quietly, and no longer cared that she was still wearing her pink pajamas in the middle of the day.

* * *

Time had no value for Rei Ayanami. Other people lived their entire lives by it, and so Rei was forced to accept that it existed because it helped in her interpersonal relations with others to have a point of reference. Thus, Rei did not have time; she had schedules. Her life was measured by cycles—eat, sleep, go to school, do what you are told. It was simple and liberating. All she had to do was follow and obey.

She had been doing that as long as she could remember. She had been doing it without thinking. Only recently had she begun to understand what it meant. She obeyed his will because she was his doll. He created her. He was her master. She would die if he asked her to.

The Second had said so, and despite the girl's harsh manner, Rei had enough self-awareness to realize that she was right. Rei knew what not being liked was like from her experiences with Doctor Akagi, and there was no doubt the Second Child disliked her. But that did not reduce the truth of her words. And although the truth bothered her, she also realized there was nothing she could do. Rei envied the Second; she had the determination, the agency, the very human desire to make herself into more.

Rei had none of those things.

As she pressed the button on her plug-suit's wrist, she could not get that thought out of her mind. She would die—she did die. But not for him. The images of her death were vivid. She saw them as if it had been herself who died, even though she had not even been born. Ayanami had died, not Rei… not her.

Why was she doing it again? Why then, when the only outcome was pain, was she allowing herself to be placed in this situation again?

The plug-suit's mechanism hissed as it vented the air out and tightened around Rei's body with an iron grip. She winced, the touch feeling like a hundred vices clamping down on her. It was a reminder that while she may have been scheduled for a second activation test, she still wasn't physically recovered from the first one.

Rei couldn't know how many days had passed. Most of her time was spent sleeping or medicated to combat the aching tenderness in her whole body. She hurt—her muscles, her chest, her joints, her head. It was as though she'd taken a beating. Despite the rest, she was weak and slightly disoriented, and felt a hint of the squirming emotion that she'd come to define as apprehension. Normally, she'd be able to simply put it out of her mind. She wasn't supposed to feel frightened. She wasn't supposed to feel anything.

Now, however, the doubts lingered.

Why was she doing it again?

Because she was his doll—the only answer that really mattered. He created her to do his will. If she didn't, then she had no purpose. Her life would be meaningless. She would do it because it was all that she had. It wasn't an issue of choice. A choice entailed the use of free will. There was no such thing in Rei's life.

"Rei?" The voice startled her for a second, before she recognized the man it belonged to.

Rei turned her head to look at him, lowering her eyes instinctively. "Yes, Commander Ikari?"

Ikari was standing by the locker room bench, arms in his pockets, his stony gaze looking her over. Something heavy pressed down on Rei's sore chest, taking away most of her breath, and making her incredibly aware that the world suddenly was no longer fixed. She did not close her eyes to wait for the sickness to pass. She stood her ground and willed herself to remain still.

"Are you ready, Rei?" he asked, his words dull and so emotionless it made her wonder if she too could sound like that.

"Yes, sir." Rei remembered how she—how Rei Ayanami—felt when around Commander Ikari. She liked him, thought of him as a father. She knew he would protect her, never hurt her. But that had been someone who had actually grown up with him, and in whom he had an interest. This girl, this Rei Ayanami, did not share that bond.

She was a realist, a term she'd heard used by their teacher at school and then looked up to learn its meaning. She understood the difference between who she had been and who she was. Understood that she could not take the place of the girl who had been lost. She wasn't Rei Ayanami, just a replacement with the name and soul of someone else.

The human mind was a blank page at birth, an empty construct to be filled with the hubris of growth and experience in a changing world. Sin and virtue—love and hate—were things to be learned, understood by interaction. But Rei had merely inherited them. Her mind was a book that had already been written. The world was not hers to experience.

"Dr. Akagi has modified Unit-00's test parameters. She is confident it will work this time," he said.

"Yes, sir. I'm sure it will." Rei said. Her words too were empty, merely an echo of the meaninglessness she felt within.

Then she heard footsteps. Commander Ikari came to stand in front of her, but she could only bow her head and stare at his shoes. He reached out a gloved hand, tucking it underneath her delicate chin in a strangely fatherly gesture, and lifted her head.

Rei stared into his eyes, red meeting black.

"I know this is hard on you, but you must understand what's at stake," Ikari said. Because he was so much taller than her, he had to look down to make eye contact, and yet there was no condescension in the way he addressed her. "This is not the way it was supposed to be. It is not the way we had meant it."

"I do not understand, sir. But I do not care to understand. I only expect to do what I must."

Gendo Ikari nodded. "And what is it that you must do?"

"Pilot Eva," she answered mechanically.

"Why?" He almost seemed surprised, though there was really no such thing as surprise in a man like him.

"That's what you gave me life for. That's what you require of me, is it not?"

"Yes, indeed it is," Ikari said. "But I will also require one more thing. If the time should come when I find myself in the position of having to risk your life, you should know that there is something more important you must do. You must survive. No matter how painful. Before, when the Dummy System was fully operational, you would have been considered disposable. But that time has passed. You are the last. And if you are to fulfill your purpose, you must survive."

She would die if he asked her to.

Rei saw the words appear vividly in her mind. She knew they were true. She looked at the man —no, the monster that stood before her and fought the urge to wrap her fingers around his throat. She could kill him. She could activate her Eva and destroy him, his world, his hopes. But then her purpose would be gone. By killing Gendo Ikari she would also be killing herself.

"Rei," Ikari demanded. "Do you promise?"

Rei was taken aback but gave the expected answer regardless. "Yes, sir."

"Good." He moved his hand, taking with it Rei's last human contact. He did not bid her farewell or good luck or anything else; he just walked off, walking silent and slowly with the strong, reassured stride of someone in total control.

Rei took a step to follow him. That was as far as got.

It was as though a button had been pressed and her balance disappeared. She stumbled, trying to brace against the nearby wall of metal lockers, her head spinning. She fell ungracefully, collapsing in a heap of white and blue. She lay there for a moment, gasping for air through clenched teeth, fighting the urge to vomit.

And then she began pulling herself up, whimpering from the effort. She forced her body to stand, leaning heavily against the front of the nearest locker and finding handholds where she could, the grip pads on the palms of her gloves providing some traction. Her body protested. The fall had now added a distinct throbbing quality to an already flaring headache.

When she was reasonably certain that she would not be hitting the floor again, Rei took a step. Her balance was unsteady but workable. She was careful to walk slowly, and not to stumble—she could not afford to. There would be no getting up again.

* * *

"Second and third set connections have been cleared," Aoba called out from his station, drawing the attention of the two women standing at the observation window. "Approaching borderline."

"What's Rei's status?" Maya asked worriedly. She had been carefully studying Unit-00 through the thick armored glass, as if somehow close visual inspection would allow her any problems better than the MAGI computers. It was a preposterous idea, but it made her feel better. Beside her, Ritsuko Akagi remained unconcerned.

"Pilot condition is green," Haruna confirmed. "Heart rate and breathing have quickened, beta waves are elevated. Everything is still within parameters, though. No anomalies on the A-10 pattern."

"Now we find out if we must pay for our sins in blood," Ritsuko said, looking at Maya. The young lieutenant bit down on her lip. "Relax, Maya. It'll be fine."

"It makes me nervous when you talk like that, like you are waiting for the end of the world."

"Don't worry, I don't believe humans have the ability to end the world anymore than to make miracles happen, or have others fall in love with us."

"1.4 to borderline clearance," came the word from Aoba.

Beyond the glass Unit-00 remained still, the sparking blue finish of its round head and new armor reflecting the lights that ran along the ceiling of the cage, a single red eye staring fixedly into space, unmoving and unblinking.

None of the Evangelions had been designed or built with their intended pilots in mind—they were tweaked in order to maximize their performance with a particular child in the same way other war machines can be altered to achieve greater destructive power. But since it was impossible to determine who could become an Eva pilot at birth, the individual units could not be built to suit any one person. Cores could be swapped out based on certain criteria Maya herself did not fully understand, but she assumed were based on a pilot's particular needs; software could be written and changed, which was what they'd been unsuccessfully attempting.

But the Evas ... somehow they always seemed to reflect a part of their pilot's personality. Somehow it was as though a particular pilot was meant to be matched up with a specific Eva unit. Previous cross-synchronization experiments had shown the links formed between the pilot and the Eva were not unlike those between children and their mothers, although completely artificial, and just as hard to break or replace.

"1.0"

That was why each Child could only pilot his or her Eva. And in time, at some primordial psychological level, the characteristics of the living were passed onto the non-living technology. Unit-00 was no different; it shared Rei's aura of mystery and, it turned out, a level of quiet unpredictability.

"Borderline cleared!" Haruna announced, standing from her console, obviously excited. "Final connections enabled. Pilot's brainwaves are normal, pulse normal. Evangelion Unit-00 has been activated!"

There was a general sigh of relief as those words echoed through the control room. Someone cheered; Aoba, Maya guessed. She looked over at Ritsuko. The older woman in turn looked at her with something akin to pride. "You really don't give yourself enough credit, Maya. You can't succeed if you are always ready to fail."

Maya blushed and nodded. But before she could offer her gratitude at being compliment by someone she admired in the way she did Ritsuko, the blond Doctor had already turned to the bank of technicians behind the two of them. "Open a channel to the pilot."

Hyuga nodded and did as he was told.

"Channel's open, Ma'am."

Ritsuko stepped from the window and moved towards one of the terminals, making the young technician sitting there tense noticeably. "Rei, can you hear me?"

"Yes." Rei's voice was weak, little more than a whisper carried over the speakers as if she were standing right there with them.

"We are done with the activation now." Ritsuko said. She cast a look in Maya's direction. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine."

"That's good to hear," Ritsuko said, although there was no telling about her sincerity as she sounded as cold as Maya had ever heard her. "Do you think you can handle the mobility test?"

That was a rhetorical question, and everyone present—certainly everyone who'd ever spent time around Rei Ayanami—knew it. Maya would never accuse Rei of being a liar in that self-interest was required in order for something to be lie and she had no such thing. She was as selfless as they came, to the detriment of her own health.

"Yes." Rei said without hesitation.

Maya was ready to protest but held back at the last second, remembering she wasn't on solid enough ground to object to anything Ritsuko, and the Commander by proxy, wanted to do.

Something of her reluctance showed on her face, however, and Ritsuko was quick to give her a disapproving glare. The short-haired girl felt as though she was back in college, being reprimanded by a teacher for a sub-par term paper she had obviously thought was good enough to make the grade.

Belatedly Maya realized that her relationship with Ritsuko was just that. She was the younger student who failed to make her instructor notice her, and Ritsuko was just like those professors. Cold, detached—they had tenure, what did they care?

What did Ritsuko Akagi care?

"Good," Ritsuko said, and Maya had the impression that she was talking to her instead of Rei. "Let's get this over with."

A series of acknowledgements followed, and a flurry of activity took over the crowded control room. But even as the technicians busily typed commands at their stations, Maya felt one or two sets of eyes land questioningly on her.

She turned back to once more peer out the armored window at the cage beyond, imagining that inside the blue Evangelion the First Child could very well be looking at her also. Maya shook her head slowly, in case it wasn't just her imagination.

* * *

The two roommates sat together at the dinner table for what seemed like the first time in ages. Shinji had cooked, of course, something for which Misato was grateful because she was getting pretty bored with the watery soups and tasteless concoctions provided by all of Central Dogma's cafeterias. The fact that he had taken it upon himself to cook also meant he was coping, even if he still wasn't going to school.

Misato had always loved Shinji's cooking, but no matter how hard she tried to enjoy it, the awkward silence inthe room made her feel slightly uncomfortable. They hadn't spoken about Asuka in days. Shinji seemed as keen to avoid the subject as she was to make sure he was doing alright. She tried not to look at him, fearing she might increase the awkwardness between them and cause him to walk up and leave.

She didn't want to drive him away—the one thing she thought he needed was someone to be with.

"I'm finished," Shinji said as he set his chopsticks down on the table, next to his plate.

Misato lifted her gaze from her own plate, which was only half empty, and looked at the boy. He was depressed, she could tell. His shoulders were sagging, his whole posture slumped. The pale blue orbs of his eyes seemed bleaker than she remembered.

Shinji had always had sad eyes. It just one of things—somehow the physical qualities of a person reproduced and even magnified emotions held deep inside. He was a gloomy, quiet kid, perhaps moreso than anyone that age should be, but sad was a different level entirely. Gloomy was usually a disposition towards the future; sadness stemmed from something that had already happened and could not be changed.

Sadness could not be fixed, no matter how much Misato wished she could.

"Dinner was very good, Shinji," she said somewhat cheerfully, trying to ease the tension that had grown between the two of them. "You really outdid yourself."

"Thank you," Shinji replied in a whisper, his head down.

"Maybe if things had been different, you could have become a chef." Misato didn't like the how that sounded, as if that possibility was gone forever when it really wasn't. Shinji was young, and he had his whole life ahead of him. He was an Evangelion pilot, but that wasn't all he could ever be.

"Maybe..." Shinji began. He pushed his plate away and rose slowly to his feet. "Uh...Misato-san, can I ask you a question?"

He hesitated as he said this, clearly attempting to broach an even more uncomfortable subject. Misato had a good idea what was coming, and braced herself. "What is it?"

Shinji swallowed awkwardly, hands clenching repeatedly at his side "I-I just wanted to know … Ayanami—Rei, she … I can pilot Eva. That's what you need me to do, right? I can pilot it. I can do anything. But Rei …"

"You want to pilot so she doesn't have to?" Misato finished for him.

"Yes," he said with uncharacteristic assertiveness. "I'll do anything. I won't complain. I won't disobey orders. Just don't make her …" he stopped suddenly, and Misato realize he was only now registering the look of regret on her face. "Sorry."

"I don't understand why Rei chooses to do what she does," Misato said. "But she does. Nobody makes her do it. I think maybe she's aware than we've been living in borrowed time—that sooner or later we'll need the Evangelions. You are one thing, but Asuka's out of the question."

The redhead's name seemed to catch him by surprise. He swallowed whatever protest he wanted to make. A shadow settled over his young face.

It was the first time the subject was brought up; Misato had not figured out how to do so and not come across as accusatory. Despite her best efforts, however, Shinji's conscience was not about to let him get off that easily. Her mentioning it now only seemed to upset him more.

He started to blush, but not from shame—it was anger turned inwards. Self-hatred. At that moment he was caught between confronting a very harsh reality and running away.

"I...I didn't mean to hurt her," he said remorsefully.

Misato nodded. It was all she could do. "I know, Shinji."

"I didn't mean for this to happen."

"Shinji..."

"I didn't mean for her to go away!" he yelled, as if needing to make her understand—there didn't seem to be anything more important to him in the world.

"We never mean for bad things to happen, Shinji," she said, doing her most motherly impression. "But they happen anyway. It's a part of life. All we can do is make sure that when bad things do happen, we should always try to find a way to overcome them. I don't think I'm the one you should be saying these things to, either. There's only one person who should know you didn't want to hurt them. And it isn't me." Misato pressed her lips. "What else can I say?

"Not much...I guess," Shinji replied dourly. "I just...don't know how to deal with this."

"With what?" Misato asked.

"The feeling of guilt," Shinji said. The admission seemed to hit him like a physical blow. His face hardened, a young set of features frozen in seriousness. "The feeling that this is all my fault. That I shouldn't have said those things. That … that I …"

"Only you can come to terms with your own feelings." She stopped him before he got any further, knowing full well where that lonely road would lead him.

Neither of them said anything else for a while. The silence hung in the clammy kitchen air like a blanket, pushing aside the smell of freshly-cooked food and filling the senses with something far less pleasant.

There was hardly any need for him to tell her that he was sorry in the first place. She had known him long enough to realize he wouldn't hurt a fly without provocation. It wasn't in his nature in the same way that confrontation _was_ in Asuka's. Again she regretted the decision to bring them together, to even dare to imagine that their personalities could peacefully coexist.

Finally, Shinji turned around. "I'm going to bed."

"Good night."

He picked up his plate and put it in the sink. He'd made it a few steps into the living room, before he stopped and then turned back. "Misato-san?"

"Yes?" she said attentively.

"Would you mind taking out the trash tonight? I know it's my turn, but I'm...just too tired."

He could have asked her to quack like a chicken and she would have done it. He could have asked for a lot more. Misato remembered how, in the depths of the war with the Angels, she had gone as far as offering him her body. She had only touched him, to let him know that she was there for him. However wrong it was, she just wanted to make him feel better. But whether it was because he didn't understand or because he didn't want her, Shinji had pulled away. It had been easy to think that he was just too innocent.

Misato regretted that incident, and thinking about it only reinforced the sense that she was completely unprepared for the role she was attempting to play. She wasn't a mother, to either Shinji or Asuka; she was just a stand-in, an unwed matron who was little more than filler.

"Don't worry about it, Shinji," Misato said with a deceptively reassuring wave of her hand. "I got it. You go on. Good night."

"Thank you," Shinji said.

As part of their assigned duties, Section 2 agents kept surveillance on the Children and submitted regular reports. She hadn't been home to keep tabs on him personally, but she was aware of the fact that he had missed school several days in a row. He was probably avoiding Asuka, and missing must have seemed like a reasonable precaution, which she could understand. But the reports also indicated the Second Child had been absent as well. In any case, Asuka could afford to miss school—the only reason she'd been assigned to Class 2-A to begin with was to facilitate surveillance and security—while Shinji couldn't.

Admittedly, Misato had told him to take a day off to go talk to Rei, but she hadn't intended for him to extend that indefinitely.

School, like cooking, represented a future apart from the Evangelion, things that could open many doors later on in life. She would have to talk to him about that. Not now, though. His future was secondary only to his present, and he certainly didn't need a lecture from her right now.

"I'll do the dishes too, Shinji," she added, not feeling it was fair to put him up to doing chores. It was a little thing, but she had to carry her own weight. Shinji needed her to be a grown up, to stop placing undue burdens on his shoulders.

Shinji nodded, bid Misato a good night again and went to his room. His steps were heavy as he went, lacking even the faintest trace of willpower, his socks rustling silently against the floor.

Misato finished her last bite and leaned back on her wooden chair, throwing back her head so that she could stare at the ceiling. The yellow light fell harshly on her face. Her skin was hot and covered in perspiration, even though she only wore a stringy top and shorts. Asuka had always complained about the need for a new air conditioner. But she ignored these things, her mind drifting elsewhere… to Shinji and what he was going through.

Somehow she had to make sense of it—there had to be a logical explanation for how things could have gotten so far out of control. Because, maybe then she'd be able to help him.

"Is that it...a consequence of guilt?" she whispered absently to herself. "He's too hard on himself."

* * *

Russian Foreign Minister Boris Alexandrovich Vassiliesky was used to being respected by anyone he came in contact with—it came from representing the second most powerful nation on Earth—and was extremely annoyed when Gendo Ikari refused to meet him on the time set by the Minister's office and instead arranged his own meeting. To top it off, Ikari appeared pleased at the Russian's willingness to get on his good side; he knew very well that when people want something they are likely to be unusually accommodating.

"Despite what the UN says, the Russian Federation, as you know, is very interested in what NERV has to offer," the Foreign Minister said, setting down his tea cup on the little plate that had been provided.

"I am doubtful of your motives," Gendo Ikari said. "The Evangelion technology is not just for showing off. I must have strict assurances that you will use this gift judiciously."

They were sitting across from each other on one of NERV's most private conference lounges, with several of Ikari's Section 2 people and Vassiliesky's own SPETSNAZ-trained security guards acting as sentries. The only ones that were allowed to move back and forth were the waiters that brought dinner, and the Minister's personal aide.

"Your point is well taken, but I assure you, your fears are unjustified," Vassiliesky said. "My government handled thousands of nuclear weapon for fifty years. Never in that time did we adopt the cavalier attitude of our enemies. We are cautions to the extreme. The same could be said for whatever technology we borrow from you."

Ikari nodded. "Yes, you sound a lot like America when it asked us to grant them this same technology," he said, lacing his fingers in front of his face. "We foolishly did, thinking that the Americans could be trusted. But now you see what's happened. The Americans are trying to push us out of their country. They don't believe they need us anymore."

"Russia is not America," Vassiliesky said slowly, making emphasis on every word. "We remember those who help us, and never forget an affront. Go ask the Germans."

"I am well aware of that," Ikari replied. "Russia is even more dangerous than America. Still, danger is a matter of perspective. On that account alone is that I am willing to offer you a deal."

Vassiliesky leaned forward on his chair, decidedly interested. "I'm listening."

"I will allow your country access to what you want but I will require something of the utmost importance to NERV," Ikari began. "If you refuse then I will have no other option but to ask you to leave immediately."

"You don't leave me many options open, Ikari," Vassiliesky said. "We are not the sort to make decisions on the spot."

"Who needs options?" Ikari said matter-of-factly. "This is my offer, do you take it?"

"And what is it that you want in return?"

"A spare."

Vassiliesky thought about that, judging how much information to reveal. "So you know about that?"

"Unfortunately," Ikari said. "I don't know whether I should be offended that you have begun to move ahead with the next stage of your plan before being granted what you need to complete phase one. It presents me with more arrogance I feel comfortable dealing with."

"A weapon is useless if it can not be deployed on the battlefield," Vassiliesky said. "Even one as powerful as the Evangelion. I'm sure a man like you understands perfectly. I would not be asking for technical data and making deals unless I knew it was workable. But I find it strange that you would require this from us."

"My organization has been infiltrated, so I must outsource." Ikari looked at him evenly, his gaze robotic. His face did not betray the slightest hint of emotion. "You are doubtful, which is permissible given the nature of my request. What do your instincts tell you?"

"My instincts tell me that you are a snake in the grass," Vassiliesky began and then he broke into a smile. "That you are dangerous in the extreme. And that the devil would be foolish to make a deal with you." He paused, grinned. "Are you sure you do not have Russian blood?"

"I am afraid not," Ikari said.

"A pity, really," Vassiliesky said. "Anyway, put your offer in writing and I'll pass it along to my government as the best course of action. Then it'll be up to the boss. He will most likely approve it if I recommend it. Of course, this is all providing that NERV keeps its end of the bargain."

"Nothing in writing," Ikari countered. "I would not be so careless as to sign my name to a piece of paper. You pass along my message, personally if you must."

Vassiliesky paused, considering. A trip to Moscow didn't trouble him—he'd be there tonight should he required it. What bothered him was the Comrade President wanting to know why he'd made the trip at Ikari's behest. Russians ministers were nobody's couriers. On the other hand, the potential behind this proposition was simply staggering. "Very well," he concluded. "I shall do as you request, as a personal favor."

"We must see results before you are allowed access to the requested information. But NERV will keep its word," Ikari said. "Otherwise, I much appreciate your sincerity."

Vassiliesky nodded his agreement. He was not entirely convinced of the other's motives, and the reverse was probably true. However, trust and respect were not mutually exclusive in these sort of dealings. At least as long as one had something the other wanted. "You drive a hard bargain**,** Ikari."

"I wouldn't have lasted very long in this position if I didn't."

* * *

The main control room inside Central Dogma was built in tiers that reflected the command of the organization itself inside a cavernous space. The main deck was essentially the ground floor, although it was built roughly halfway up on the superstructure that took up the room's near wall. The Commander's deck was perched highest on the structure that made up the top tier. The floor plan was geometric, resembling a triangle with a MAGI computer located at each point and stations laid out around the perimeter. It was a modern castle, humanity's last bastion against the Angels.

The front of the room contained the huge tactical display, the world's biggest holographic layout. The hum of machinery was constant but little more than pleasant white noise. Due to the need to control light intensity for the holograms, most of the room was plunged in darkness, making the tiny lights in the further parts twinkle like stars in the night.

Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki watched the nearest computer screen as the information was transferred from the Test Facility to the separate consoles and then to the MAGI's main database for analysis. Although it wasn't his custom, he was presently standing on the main deck watching the technicians in front perform their assigned duties.

They were all young men and women. Being among them make Fuyutsuki feel as though he was back in Kyoto, teaching the future generations. Each of these of these youngsters was an Einstein _in potentia_, a Heisenberg.

A Yui Ikari.

Fuyutsuki smiled to himself at the memory. But it was also a sad one—in the end her success meant an end for the potential of youth. Yet another sacrifice for a chance at a new beginning. Things were moving along now. Evangelion Unit-00 was now working, even if only with the old programming, and Dr. Akagi had made good progress on the Dummy. Gendo Ikari was close to attaining his goal, and if NERV could survive the next few days, it would achieve a level of influence comparable only to that of SEELE itself.

Fuyutsuki was more concerned with his immediate superior than with the old men, though. He knew that Ikari was not pleased with the overall delay of his Complementation Project, and that he was even angered by having to divert his original plan to make room for all the issues that had surfaced since the last Angel, particularly Rei.

The universe worked like that; entropy and uncertainty were variables that could not be eliminated, only compensated for.

Had the UN tried to destroy them, Fuyutsuki thought, all the restriction to Complementation would have been removed and Commander Ikari would have been able to do as he wished without repercussions. But, because of Rei, they could no longer guarantee any success. Her loss was the crippling blow that compelled them to be political. Gendo Ikari could only welcome the extra time. He'd had to postpone his plans and alter them in such a way that he could secure SEELE's non-intervention. But Rei was the key.

Yui would have liked for him to wait anyway.

"Commander, I think you should see this," Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga called up to him from his station on the far left side of central computer bank. The Sub-Commander made his way to the computer console and peered intently at the screen.

"What is it?" said Fuyutsuki.

"The MAGI have detected an anomaly in the Earth's electromagnetic field," Hyuga said, pointing to a spike on his computer readout. "Strong enough to trigger our sensors."

"What does it mean?" asked Fuyutsuki.

"Well it's..."

Before Hyuga could finish that sentence all of the alarms went off at once. The control room was plunged into a chaos of sirens and claxons, which Fuyutsuki ordered be disabled immediately. The red emergency lights flashed everything in a deep crimson. The color of blood.

Operators scrambled to their consoles and began typing commands furiously.

"Lieutenant?" demanded the Sub-Commander calmly.

"The MAGI don't know," Hyua said, typing in his computer. "The magnetic anomaly has changed. It looks like an EMP shock wave."

"EMP? Location?"

Fuyutsuki waited for the answer he knew was coming. Surely, this was it.

"Eastern Asia. China. Beijing."

"The Sixth Branch," Fuyutsuki said. "Get the feed from the UN satellites. Invoke query priority Alpha."

"Satellite signal is up," Lieutenant Haruna Hiei announced, sitting in the middle of the computer bank, a worried expression on her face as she turned towards the Sub-Commander. "Sir..."

"Relay to the main display."

The immense screen in the front of the room came to life with a satellite image of Eastern China. The small letters on the bottom left corner identified it as UNS CommSat 46. The screen changed from the graphics to a very fuzzy image, what was usual for long distance transmissions. As the image began to clear, the picture of China zoomed in on the Beijing coordinates. The image was held for a few seconds, and the camera, or whatever it was up there on the satellite, started to rotate. In the time it took for the picture to clear again the sense of alarm that had gripped all those in the control room turned to horror.

A dome of light expanded rapidly across the vast landscape in front of it, consuming everything which existed in its path.

Even Fuyutsuki, who thought he knew what to expect, felt his chest tighten with dread.

Everyone in the room stood still, silent, eyes wide open. Time seemed to stop, as more and more of the Earth below was incinerated by the tidal wave of light and fire. The image was filled with the grotesque light, so vast that it disappeared into the horizon and set the sky ablaze as if it were a vision of hell itself.

Aoba, by his console, was the first to react. He said something, but no one else understood because no one was paying attention. Fuyutsuki guessed it was either a curse or a prayer. He decided on the later, for he too was willing to start asking for God's forgiveness.

"Well...." he said softly, trying hard not to let his fear show in his words. He barely succeeded at that. "It has finally happened. They seem to have activated Unit A after all."

"Oh, God..." came Haruna's shocked whisper as the image zoomed out of the picture so that the entire globe would appear on camera.

Aoba slowly removed his headset and shot a strange glance at Fuyutsuki, as if for reassurance to what his eyes were witnessing, but just one look at the Sub-Commander's grim face was enough to convince him this was for real.

The white haired Sub-Commander simply stared at the screen. Then he glanced at Hyuga, who was still very shocked.

"I think we'd better start praying for a miracle, sir," the young operator said, shaking his head.

Fuyutzuki cocked his head, as if snapping from a trance. He locked eyes with the operator, eyes that said a lot. "Pray to whom, Lieutenant?"

* * *

Far below the watchful eye of UNS CommSat 46 the city of Beijing, China, was no longer a city. It was a hellish cauldron of noise and fire, of light and death. The wave of light expanded and blasted everything in its path. The earth shook, the sky darkened and then became alive with fire. It seemed the world had come to an end.

In the center of this hell, hovering over the ruins of NERV's Sixth Branch HQ, a ghostly shape straightened itself out of the ashes of the devastated city, a creature so powerful that the whole world lay incinerated at its feet. The creature roared among the flames, its eyes alight with the fire of its own power. Its wings stretched out towards the heavens, its arms spread apart as if offering itself in sacrifice to an obscure creator.

The abominable Angel, although trapped in an Eva's body, bellowed angrily to proclaim its birth; and the entire world trembled.

* * *

"I see," Commander Ikari said as he hung up the personal phone located on his desk. He turned to face the blond doctor standing behind him. His grim expression—more grim than usual—precluded the need for any words.

"So I take it they did it, then?" Ritsuko Akagi asked. It was a rhetorical question, obviously, but she could not refrain from making it.

"Yes." Ikari replied unemotionally.

"Did we make a mistake?"

"I can't answer that. We'll know soon enough."

* * *

To be continued...


	5. Advent

Notes: Holy crap it took less than a month to work on this chapter. Well, it should get easier as I go along since the later chapters are better written than the earlier ones. Thanks to those that took the time to write reviews. It makes this worthwhile instead of writing smut.

Thanks to guys over at Lemontastica for the feedback. You know who you are.

-2/13/09

* * *

Evangelion Genocide: Extended

"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright  
In the forests of the night,  
What immortal hand or eye  
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

-William Blake.

Genocide 0:5 / Advent

* * *

Junichi Nakayima waited for the dark Subaru to stop completely before approaching it.

He had been unable to gauge Kluge's present state of mind over the phone, but he could imagine the man was not very happy. The news of what happened in China had been all over the TV and radio, and in the age of information certain details had already leaked out that would have otherwise been best left hidden from the public. Ironically, the questions that were beginning to emerge in the wake of the catastrophe did not seem to relate to NERV as Nakayima would have expected.

There had always been an understanding in the international community that the Chinese were rogues, looking out only for their own interests, and NERV's Chinese Branch was generally regarded as little more than a government controlled front. So, rather than blame NERV and Gendo Ikari for creating this crisis, the UN had now turned to them resolve it.

Never underestimate the ability of politicians to reverse course in the face of adversity, Nakayima thought.

The passenger side door opened and Musashi Kluge stepped from the car, followed by a bodyguard. As always, he was dressed in a black suit and a black trench coat. Despite his age and his gray hair, the Department Chief carried with him an overwhelming sense of purpose, so much so that even his bodyguard, a much younger and bigger man, seemed less threatening.

In the glare of the headlights it was difficult to tell any details, but the lines in Kluge's face seemed to have grown deeper. His eyes were narrow and sharp and black as coal.

Nakayima slipped his hands in his pockets. The night was cool so he wore a gray jacket over his Ministry uniform. It was relic of his military days, faded with the unit patches torn off. He almost slept in his uniform these days, and the jacket had been the first thing he could find.

Kluge came to a stop in front of him, his face etched with barely controlled anger.

"Chief Kluge, this is—"

That was as far as Nakayima got before Musashi Kluge smashed a fist against his face and drove him to the ground with a knee to the midsection.

It happened so quickly there was no time to react. When Nakayima realized what had happened, the Department Chief had already grabbed his collar and was pushing his head against the pavement. He reached up with hand and tried to get the man off of him, but Kluge held him with a strength that seemed supernatural.

His head was spinning, a persistent throb driving spikes of pain directly into his brain as if with a hammer. He tasted blood.

"If there is something I hate," Kluge began, his voice a low hiss as he took Nakajima's H&K handgun from its holster below his armpit and pressed the cold steel barrel against his head, "it's people who don't know when to open their mouths."

"What-what are you talking about?" Nakayima grunted, writhing in pain. He knew then that no matter what he said he was probably about to die. "It isn't my fault." He spat blood onto the sidewalk. "There's nothing to indicate Ikari was responsible."

Kluge released the safety and pulled back the gun's hammer with a solid, ominous click.

"You know what else I hate?" the Chief asked, tightened his grip on Nakayima's collar. "People who think I have a desk job because I'm an old man. How stupid do you think I am?"

Nakayima said nothing. Pushing past the pain of a nose that was probably broken, he stared up at the Department Chief with barely controlled anger. Even if he pushed the older man away from him and tried to take the gun, the bodyguards would shoot him dead before he could take a step.

"You know, I really wish I could put a bullet through your head," Kluge said, frowning in annoyance. "It isn't often that a man in my position is told that he can't do something, but you seem to have friends in important places."

"I don't … have friends," Nakayima groaned.

"Oh, but you do. You might not realize it, but you do." He turned the gun slightly, making the end of the barrel twist in place against Nakayima's aching temple. "If it were up to me, I wouldn't have bothered with this charade; you'd be dead already. But that wouldn't work for certain people who seem to place some stock in your life. I can't say I understand it. You are just a grunt, and a bad one at that."

"I told you that … when you hired me." Nakayima couldn't recall that he really had. The pain inside his skull made it hard to remember anything. He was sure he must have, though. Kluge had full access to his service record, so there was no point in lying.

That seemed to amuse Kluge. He grimaced, pale lips pulling back and showing nothing but teeth. A wolf, Nakayima thought, and he wants blood.

"You know what your problem is?" Kluge said. "You think there's nothing more to people than what you see on the surface. You do not have the benefit of being naïve. It's simple idiocy. I bet all this time you thought that we were after Ikari as if he were some corrupt bureaucrat. I bet you thought he was harmless—as harmless as anyone with no oversight an a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction can be. That was your mistake." His eyes flickered down for a second. "I bet you didn't even think I knew how to use a gun."

Nakayima tried to keep cool, but it wasn't easy. He'd had guns pointed at him before, but in combat the distance was much greater. A soldier hardly ever saw his enemy, and he hardly ever felt his enemy's barrel trained directly on him, or saw his face, or stared into his eyes. Chance and skill were involved in combat. At point blank range neither of those things existed.

He knew then Kluge was right. "You said yourself you won't kill me."

"Kill? No." The old man moved the gun away from the agent's head and pressed it against his shoulder. "But nothing was said about how badly I'm allowed to hurt you."

With my own gun, Nakayima thought. Somehow that made him feel utterly stupid.

"I'm disappointed, Nakayima," Kluge said. "And I don't like that. They are going to make me do a statement, you know. Everyone who is someone within the Japanese Government will be there—hell if there were still an Emperor, he'd be there. The press will probably be there as well, and if not the details will soon leak out. But they are going to make me stand there and explain. And what do think they will say when I tell them we did not know?"

"I did what I could," Nakayima replied, his voice rising. "It isn't my fault. You should have sent someone better!"

"What makes you think it was my choice?" Kluge said and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Misato felt as if she was on display as she stood at attention before Commander Ikari and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki to deliver her report. This despite the fact that, on account of all the preparations being made for NERV's first combat alert in months, only a small part of the staff had gathered in the briefing room. Not many people were needed—from these select few, the necessary orders would trickle down the ranks with practiced efficiency.

"As of 03:49 hours the target, which the UN has unofficially classified as the 18th Angel despite MAGI's inability to obtain a lock on the energy pattern, began moving from its original position over the remains of the Chinese Branch outside Beijing. Our current tracking data predicts that the target will reach Tokyo-3 in 14 hours. The UN has already asked us to live up to our agreement, namely the A-11 directive, and engage the target directly."

"How swiftly the sheep come running back to the shepherds, don't you think, Fuyutsuki?" Gendo Ikari said from behind his hands, laced together as usual in front of his face. He was sitting at his illuminated console.

"Indeed," the Sub-Commander said, standing at attention behind his superior officer. He turned his head to Misato. "Has the UN authorized NERV's freedom of action as per the A-11 directive?"

"Yes," Misato said. "NERV has been guaranteed the use of any and all measures to stop the target. This includes the UN Army, the JSSDF and all other equipment that might be required."

The significance of that statement was not lost on any of the people present and a murmur started in the half-shadows. The UN had spent most of the last few months hampering NERV's activities. Without Angels to fight NERV was a money pit in the eyes of the bureaucrats and therefore, predictably, anathema to anyone who had to worry about budgets. Equipment had been cut, as well as personnel. NERV had ended up scraping by as best it could on what it had, but the cost on its people was more than Misato cared to consider.

But in a single instant of utter destruction and death, this latest threat had reversed that trend. Misato felt awful that NERV's relevance—its very survival—was directly tied to people's deaths, but it was the truth and denying it would do nothing to prevent more lives from being lost.

"Very well," Ikari said in his usual deliberate tone. "Major Katsuragi, what is NERV's current defense capability?"

Misato knew that he already had the answer. He wouldn't have asked her otherwise. And although this was the sort of thing she had been trained for, now that she was forced to do it again she realized that she hadn't missed it.

People are going to die no matter what I do, she told herself, maybe even people I love. The thought left a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Not very good, sir," Misato said. "As you know, Unit-00's self-destruction detonation and the third Lake Ashino have eliminated many of our deployment routes. This has greatly hampered our ability to deploy the Eva effectively over an extensive area. We can, however, place the Evas at strategic locations in advance to intercept the target at our discretion."

"As always, it is to our advantage that the Angel has decided to come looking for us," Ikari said. "The timing is of its choosing, the place is of ours. That is perhaps the only advantage we truly have."

Strange how no one ever seemed to find that odd, Misato wondered. Well, no one but Kaji. That ended badly for him.

"And it is an advantage I intend to fully use, sir." she said.

"Do you have a plan, Major Katsuragi?" Fuyutsuki asked with mock surprise.

"That is what I get paid for, sir." Misato could not believe she was playing the faithful lackey again. It was as if she was watching herself from another plane of reality, standing here, once again acting like a dog awaiting her master's orders.

"Then out with it, Major Katsuragi, we do not have all day," Commander Ikari said.

Beside Misato, Ritsuko gave a nod of her head and a holographic display flashed to life behind them showing a 3-dimensional layout of the Hakone region. Weapon emplacements were shown as tiny yellow triangles on the map. Eva deployment routes were highlighted in both red and blue to illustrate their readiness status like a jagged spiderweb of tangled lines. The red unavailable routes far outnumbered the blue available ones. The display then zoomed in on the lower-left quarter of the grid, indicating the south-western approach to the city, codenamed Sierra Two on the map.

Here the positions of the UN and JSSDF units were marked by green rectangles, each with small text below the rectangle to designate the unit identifications.

"I plan to have the UN Army stretched out across the northwest to intercept the target as soon as it reaches Japanese air space," Misato explained. "That will give us a chance to analyze the strength of its AT Field, probe for weaknesses and keep the UN busy and out of our way. This will be only token resistance, of course. I don't think that we should expect any damage to be done to the target, but it'll be good for the UN's prestige to be actively involved. As for the actual interception, Unit-00, in my view the only truly combat-effective Evangelion we currently have, will take position five miles southwest, behind the UN lines and engage the target with long-range firepower. I have decided to borrow one of the new high-density plasma rifles the SSDF has been developing for us, which I will requisition myself if necessary."

"So you plan to use an experimental weapon in this critical situation?" Fuyutsuki asked. His tone was not exactly critical, but it carried his point perfectly.

"The SSDF has assured me that their rifle can penetrate even the strongest of AT Fields; at least, the strongest we've encountered so far. This is the only alternative to using the positron rifle again."

"Why are you only proposing to use long-range weapons, Major Katsuragi?" Commander Ikari inquired. "Have you forgotten that the Evangelion is a weapon of close-combat?"

"No, sir, I haven't. But I believe that we must avoid close-quarters combat if possible. Unit-00 has not gone through a proper testing phase yet. We don't know how it will handle—"

"I will permit you to requisition any type of weaponry that you believe will assure us the success of this operation, but it would be irresponsible not to anticipate the need to be ready for close-quarters combat."

"I understand, sir," Misato said. "But we would be doubly irresponsible if we were to overestimate Unit-00's combat status. There hasn't been time for a weapon's test, and Rei isn't exactly at peak fitness either. Anticipating CQC is one thing, but seeking it out in the first place is not a winning strategy."

Of course, there was more to it than that, but bringing up her concerns over Rei's safety and the potential for disaster if it came to hand-to-hand combat wouldn't change the fact that they needed her out there. And Rei was probably fitter than Shinji, if only psychologically. Asuka was out of the question as far as Misato was concerned.

No, it had to be Rei.

Her superiors mulled over her words carefully, as she had expected. These weren't stupid men, nor were they deaf to counsel.

"What contingency measures have you planned?" Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki asked, clasping his hands behind his back.

"We simply don't have much in the way of effective reserves," Misato replied. She leaned forward over the rail in front of her console. Behind her the display changed and showed schematics of all three Evangelion units. "Unit-01 will be placed on standby, just in case Unit-00 is knocked out of combat. Unit-02 will also be on standby, but in its current condition it won't be of much help. If it comes down to using Unit-02, we'll be as good as dead." She turned to the blonde doctor. "Ritsuko?"

"Unit-01 is more than capable of holding its own," Ritsuko said with practiced matter-of-factness. "I believe. However, the S2 organ remains untested and we cannot trust that it will perform well in hand-to-hand combat. And if it goes berserk it might pose a greater threat than this new Angel. That is assuming the S2 engine can even be started conventionally, which is a possibility we haven't fully explored. Theoretical supposition aside, we don't want another Dirac Sea incident. It simply isn't safe."

Misato grimaced against her will. The mere thought of putting Shinji in harm's way made her feel sick, but what else could she do? The Evangelions were meant as weapons and the Children as warfighters. Ultimately that was their reason for being here. And there was only one way to keep Shinji safe—Rei had to destroy the Angel.

Having to risk her life in exchange for Shinji's felt nearly criminal, and certainly wrong. Misato couldn't reconcile such a choice except to tell herself that it wasn't really a choice in the end. Someone had to be out there, and Rei was better than Shinji.

"What about the civilians?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"The local authorities already know what to do," Misato said. "We've notified the council, but Nakayima is nowhere to be found. However, ultimate power lies with us in these matters. We will move up to Level 1 alert once the target enters Japanese airspace."

"I would not think that the Ministry of the Interior would want to be left out of the action," Fuyutsuki said, though he did not seem surprised.

"Nakayima is probably halfway to Kyoto by now," Misato replied sarcastically. She felt good saying that. After all of the trouble the government had caused NERV, she was more than entitled to have a little fun at their expense. And the criticism was not necessarily unwarranted.

If they did not wholeheartedly agree with the joke, her superiors at least did not object to it.

"This is all very well, Major Katsuragi," Ikari said after a moment. "I see no reason to oppose your planning, but I strongly caution you against failure." His voice unemotional, as always, but it carried a hidden implication that Misato caught at once.

Failure equals death. Do not fail.

He did not have to say it. The seriousness of the situation was etched on his face—as it was on all of the faces Misato could see gathered around her.

When Commander Ikari rose out of his chair, Misato understood that she was being dismissed. She saluted, then turned on her heels and was almost out the door of the briefing room before Fuyutsuki called out.

"Doctor Akagi, if you would please remain behind."

Misato stopped abruptly, turning to face him. She ignored the odd look on Ritsuko's face. "Sir, with all due respect, if I am to assume that I have your confidence, I can't be left out of the loop."

It was an impulse, but she hoped he got her meaning. No secrets, not now.

Ikari looked at her with unflinching, hard eyes from behind thick glasses. "I have every confidence in you, Major. I merely need to discuss some extra-operational details with the doctor. With all due respect."

Misato chewed on that and did not like the taste it left in her mouth. His was a perfectly acceptable answer as far as operational necessity was concerned. There were things in this organization that didn't require her input, after all, and they didn't necessarily have to be of interest to her. She was just becoming paranoid after being kept in the dark over so many things, by people she was supposed to trust.

They wouldn't tell her everything, not even if she knew the right questions to ask, but she wanted to believe that, with thousands of lives snuffed out in an instant, even Commander Ikari wouldn't mess around with the cloak and dagger stuff at a time like this. He wouldn't jeopardize everything just so he could keep his secrets. Misato believed she knew him well enough to be certain of that.

"Excuse me, sir," she said to the Commander, then she turned and gave Ritsuko a look of warning.

The rest of the staff had already left by the time Misato stepped out. She called Hyuga and ordered him to assemble the rest of the bridge crew and the respective Eva support crews—all three—in the lower briefing room, and issued a general readiness order for everyone else.

As she walked into the elevator and the doors closed behind her, Misato looked at her watch. Dawn would not come for another hour. Suddenly, she wished she could go topside to look at the sky one last time. She dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. Everyone would be waiting for her below, and nerves were frayed enough without her taking a detour.

I hope you are proud, Kaji, Misato told herself. This is me being responsible.

In a few more hours she might get a chance to ask him in person. But not if she could help it.

* * *

"It's fine if she wants to use Rei," Ritsuko Akagi said, turning towards the Commander and away from the colored display that had shown their tactical data. "I have taken certain precautions."

"I am concerned for the security of Lilith's soul, not Rei." Ikari replied. He was looking intently at his own screen, probably studying Misato's plan outline. By now he should have memorized most of it.

"I have taken precautions to safeguard that as well," Ritsuko said, shoving her hands in her lab coat.

Ikari nodded and for the first time lifted his eyes to look at her. "Explain."

So she did.

"In case anything unfortunate should happen, Unit-00's entry-plug has been fitted with a system which will ensure that the soul will not be lost. Essentially it works in the same fashion as an electrical breaker interrupting a circuit. The life support system in the entry-plug will close the circuit upon failure, and if Rei's life signs stop then the breaker will trip."

"And?" Ikari asked flatly.

"She will not go anywhere as long as the core remains intact. As you know, Unit-00's core only has a partial imprint of a soul. Since two souls cannot occupy the same receptacle, I have arranged for a system -wide backup mechanism to upload the most current version of the soul and terminate the old one. If something happens to Rei and she dies, the soul will be captured by this system and preserved inside the core. Without the Dummy, however, we will not have a replacement for her body. The soul needs a shell."

She did not really feel any pleasure in talking about Rei like this, but she had no love for the little abomination. As far as she was concerned, the girl was a genetic anomaly, a thing made by science and no more worthy of love than the result of any other useful experiment. But Ikari thought differently, for reasons she didn't agree with.

Rei's DNA did not imply that she was at all like her donor, even if she did look like her. Ikari had never quite managed to separate himself from the second one, almost certainly due to the fact that, one way or another, he had raised her. Her loss was a hard one to stomach for him.

Not so much for Ritsuko.

"But this soul will not be the pure incarnation of Lilith," Ikari said, interrupting Ritsuko's thoughts. "That might prove very troublesome in the future."

"With the amount of human contact Rei's had, there is no such thing as a pure soul anymore," Ritsuko pointed out. "You should know that better than anyone. And since we can only transfer a soul, not re-create or copy it, we have no other recourse."

Ikari nodded. He had no other choice.

Ritsuko studied him for a moment, trying to see beyond the unbreakable facade. She might as well have been trying to read tea leaves. Normally she wouldn't bother, but she had to be tactful in order to broach the next issue pressing upon her.

He won't like it, she thought, but he has to hear it anyway.

"It would be simpler if we sent out Unit-01," Ritsuko said, and awaited the explosion she knew was coming.

Ikari, always the enigma, surprised her once again. There was no rebuke, not even a hint of emotion.

"Yui is as important a part of the plan as Rei is," NERV's Supreme Commander said calmly.

Somehow this made Ritsuko feel uneasy; she always was when he called Unit-01 by name. She pressed on.

"We don't need Yui for Complementation." The words came out blunter than she meant them, but they were no less true. "We need Rei. Unit-01 could be restored later in case it should be badly damaged—Lieutenant Ibuki proved just how far our regenerative technology has come. But if we loose Rei's body there is no replacement at hand."

"Because you destroyed the Dummy," Ikari reminded her sternly. "You tried to kill Rei. You have made her life extraordinarily difficult. And now you expect me to believe you are concerned for her?"

Ritsuko shook her head. She couldn't think of anything more ridiculous. "I am not any more concerned than I would be over losing a critical piece of equipment. When I said we I meant you. Besides, nothing I've said is factually wrong, because you do need her and she would be much harder to replace than Unit-01. I have tried to make this contingency as bulletproof as I possibly can with the limited time I have. The problem with that is that it depends on your definition of bulletproof."

Ikari said nothing to that.

Ritsuko, sensing that perhaps she was making a dent in his armor, pressed on. "My point is, why gamble with Rei when there's an alternative?"

"A bad alternative is as useless as no alternative. I would rather you took a more pragmatic approach to this situation."

It was the very definition of a pointless argument, and Ritsuko didn't know why she felt compelled to make it. But she had to, for her own sake more than for the mission itself. Something inside of her revolted at the idea of him depending on Rei in a way that he could never depend on Ritsuko herself. She would rather have Unit-01 and Shinji out there, because at least the Third Child deserved the trust of his father.

The third Rei Ayanami, on the other hand, had done nothing to earn the right to be depended upon. But Ikari did not see that. He looked at that pretty young face and only saw who it was before, not what it was now.

She returned her attention to the hologram, tapping the upper right corner with a finger so that a square button appeared. She tapped this, and the image of the map flickered into static and was replaced by the video feed from one of surveillance aircraft now trailing the Angel.

The Angel, or rather the possessed Evangelion Unit-A, looked like a thing out of a surrealist nightmare. It was lit up by at least a dozen spotlights so that its white armor gleamed, surrounded by an utterly black sky. The head resembled that of the mass production models it was based on, oval shaped with a long snout, but unlike the mass-produced Evas this unit had dark red eyes set on each side of the head, slanted like those a malignant predator. Long arms dangled down below it, ending in white claws.

For something so big, its flight was incredible graceful. Its wings were massive and it reminded Ritsuko of an overgrown bird. Around it she could see a small fleet of aircraft: fighters, mostly, all distinguishable by their navigation lights.

"How long do you think it will take," Ritsuko said absently, "for the UN to realize there is not supposed to be such an Angel."

"I do not believe it matters," Ikari replied, not showing much interest in the image. He leaned back in his chair. "Even they would be foolish to take mysticism over actual fact seriously enough to disregard what happened in China. Their own eyes count for a lot more than ancient ink on parchment."

"At the very least we should have a cover," Ritsuko suggested. "We should give them a name. To make it official."

Ikari had never been the sort to engage in subterfuge without need, but Ritsuko did not want to leave any loose ends and he would recognize that. UN analysts would hardly need to bother reading the Scrolls in depth to figure out that what was currently happening ought not to be possible. SEELE and Keel in particular, would try to clue them in, obviously, but their credibility was somewhat diminished as of late. Ikari was right; regardless of anything else, this was a threat they could all see with their own eyes, and fear.

Finally, Ikari turned his head towards the hologram and looked at it the way a disapproving father might look at a child. "Samael."

Ritsuko knew the name.

"The angel of death?" she said, slightly surprised. "Don't you think that's a little ominous?"

"Death is just another obstacle to be overcome."

It was more than that.

"You want them to be afraid," Ritsuko said. She almost had to fight the urge to smile.

The Commander rose from his chair. "Make sure your preparations are ready," he told her. Then he pressed a button on his console and his personal elevator began lowering him from sight. He was gone in seconds, and Ritsuko was left alone.

She sighed, looking back at the screen with the Angel on it, all stark white amidst an ocean of black. It flapped its massive wings, but with no sound she could not hear them. And yet, impossibly, she could feel the noise, the power and malice behind it.

Samael …

"And behold a pale horse, and he that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

* * *

His cell phone rang.

Shinji Ikari thought he dreamed it at first, but then he realized that his eyes were open and he was actually staring at his bedroom ceiling, still in bed. Oddly, he couldn't remember when had woken, or even falling asleep. He could tell from the faint gray light in room that it was early in the morning—too early even for a boy used to getting up every day for school. And the phone was ringing.

With Asuka gone, his morning routine had changed quite a bit. No more yelling for him to get out of bed; no coaxing for him to make breakfast; no excitement whatsoever. The same sort of thing had happened when she was in the hospital. His redheaded roommate's presence was overwhelming, and only when it was gone did Shinji realize how much he could miss it.

And if she had been there, he knew, she would have been yelling at him to answer the phone.

Shinji rolled out of his sheets and stood up, yawning, and pulling the plugs of his S-dat out of his ears. The music helped him sleep, helped him forget that he was alone. He fetched his book bag where he usually kept his cellphone and began digging among its contents.

It only took him a couple of seconds to locate the small device. He flipped it open and held it to his ear. "Yes, good morning?"

"Shinji-kun…"

He immediately recognized Maya Ibuki's voice, even thought it was nothing more than a whisper. It had a melodic, decidedly feminine, cadence to it that he had become familiar through hours of listening to her over Unit-01's radio.

"Miss Ibuki?" Shinji said, suppressing a wide yawn, and rubbing sleep out of his eyes with the back of a hand. "What's going on?"

"Where are you?" Maya asked. She sounded worried. That made Shinji worried as well.

"Home," he answered.

"Good. I'll send a car over to pick you up. I know it's really early, but we have a situation on our hands. Major Katsuragi said to call you before they got there. Maybe she was worried that you'd been watching it, I don't know.

"Misato?" Shinji hesitated, his drowsy mind failing to grasp everything. It didn't help that she said it very quickly. "Watching what? What's going on?"

"Trouble," Maya said. "I can't say any more right now, but we'll fill you in when you get here, okay? Please do me a favor … don't turn on your television."

"What?" Shinji murmured, not sure he understood. "Why?"

"Just don't. Pretty please."

He still didn't understand, but he nodded. "Uh, okay, I guess."

"Get dressed. Section 2 will be there in a few minutes. I have to go now," Maya said abruptly, her hurried manner doing little to put him at ease. She hung up without the usual politeness.

Shinji stood there, holding the cellphone for a few seconds as if expecting another voice to materialize from the now-silent speaker. Then he flipped it closed and tossed it into his book bag.

He looked around his room—it wasn't really supposed to be a room, but a storage closet. After Asuka had moved in she had tossed his things in here while she took over what had previously been his room. To this day, he didn't begrudge her for it, and some of his things were still in boxes from when he first moved in. Despite Misato's welcome, he just hadn't seemed able to settle in completely.

Shinji dressed quickly in the first thing he found, which happened to be his school uniform. Running a hand lazily through his short brown hair, he walked to the living room. As he passed by the television he was suddenly tempted.

Why would Maya not want him to turn it on? Was it something they didn't want him to see?

He pressed his lips together in thought, and could almost hear Asuka's whiny voice saying, "Are you stupid? If they didn't want you to see something it wouldn't be on television, would it?"

Shinji agreed. He picked up the remote and switched it on. And it didn't matter what channel because all of the broadcast networks were showing the same thing.

Whatever he had thought he might see, this wasn't it. Even for someone who had seen as much death and destruction as he had, the sight was utterly horrifying. He was still staring at the television when the Section 2 agents rang the doorbell.

* * *

"Hikari Horaki?" the man in the black suit and tie asked as soon as Hikari opened the door.

"Y-yes," Hikari replied hesitantly, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She had become accustomed enough to the mysterious black-suited men lurking in the shadows whenever the three Eva pilots were nearby that it didn't really scare her to have one knocking at the door so early in the morning, but she still found it very unsettling.

When Asuka moved in Major Katsuragi had promised her bodyguards would keep their distance. So far they had made good on the promise.

The agent reached into his dark suit and produced an ID badge. "NERV Section 2," he said, flashing the ID unnecessarily. He was wearing sunglasses, and his face was young but so bland it could have been a mask. "We are here to take the Second Child into custody."

"Custody?" Hikari blinked, now uncertain of what to think. A million things went through her mind, most of them troubling.

I don't like this, she thought. Major Katsuragi would have called ahead.

"There has been an incident and Miss Langley Soryu's presence is requested," the agent said.

"Did Major Katsuragi send you?" Hikari asked.

"Ma'am, I need to find the Second Child."

Hikari realized she wasn't going to get an explanation, and that there wasn't a whole lot she could do about it.

"I-I guess it's...all right then," Hikari muttered, fidgeting with her fingers in front of her. She was not comfortable with this and had no idea what she should do. Like Major Katsuragi, these men worked for NERV, and so she had to do as they said. But she also didn't think Asuka was in any condition to go anywhere. "I'll get her for you."

"No," the agent said, stepping over the threshold. "I will get her myself. Just show me the way."

Hikari nodded hesitantly. "Oh, okay."

She stepped aside and let the agent into the house. As she did, she cast a glance outside, where the agent's partner waited, leaning patiently against the black sedan they normally used for transport.

Closing the door, Hikari led the agent upstairs to Asuka's temporary bedroom, the room that had once belonged to her big sister's when she still lived at home. She knocked.

"Asuka, there's a Section 2 agent here," she said, her voice was soft yet loud enough that she knew Asuka could hear it. She tried to keep her concern from her tone. It wouldn't do to seem afraid. "They're looking for you."

No answer.

"Excuse me," the agent said, gently placing a hand on Hikari's shoulder to move her out of the way. He knocked once, then without waiting for an answer slid the door open just wide enough to move inside. Hikari peered through the opening as the man approached the bed. A bulge in the sheets betrayed Asuka's form. She had pulled them over her head so Hikari couldn't tell if she was asleep.

At least she slept now. Hikari had lost count of how many times she had heard her friend crying through the night, when she thought nobody could see or hear her.

The agent stood over the bed and said something. Asuka stirred under the sheets, then sleepily pushed herself into a sitting position. Her eyes were groggy with sleep when she looked up, her long golden-red mane tousled into a wiry mop. The agent could not have been more than ten years older than her and he wasn't big, but Asuka looked so small by comparison, and exhausted. She didn't wear any pajamas, only a loose top and a pair of panties. Some days she couldn't even muster the strength to climb out of bed, let alone change out of her bedclothes.

She's hurt, Hikari thought with a hint of anger as she watched her friend and the man towering above her. Can't he see that?

Then the agent did something she did not expect. Rather than talk down to Asuka as authority figures often did, he dropped to one knee so that she was the one looking down at him.

Hikari was a romantic at heart, and this simple gesture struck her powerfully. She knew then that these men weren't here to kidnap Asuka, or force her into helping them. They'd come to ask for her help. Ask politely.

Somehow she thought that Major Katsuragi might have something to do with that.

The agent slipped back through the door and closed it behind him. "I'll give her a minute."

"Thank you," Hikari said. It was all she could come up with.

Asuka emerged almost exactly a whole minute later, a redhead girl dressed in casual clothes: a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. She looked like anything but one of the defenders of humanity the media had made the Evangelion pilots out to be. Her eyes were dull, and she moved slowly, almost as if sleepwalking. Her shoulders were slumped and she was dragging her feet. The agent suggested that they should hurry.

Hikari escorted them downstairs and to the door.

"Take care of yourself," she told Asuka as she put on her shoes.

"I'll be fine," Asuka said dully, but Hikari wasn't convinced. She would never willingly admit weakness, no more than she would admit to being scared. That wasn't Asuka. But Hikari knew better.

And because she knew that Section 2 wouldn't be sent to bring Asuka in without good cause, because she could feel a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach. And because she didn't want to let the moment pass her by, Hikari enfolded her friend in a hug.

Asuka said nothing and did not return the gesture. Neither did she try to pull away. Hikari took that for acceptance and hugged her a little tighter.

"We should go," the agent said after a moment. He was looking at them while they embraced, and Hikari thought she could see the curve of a smile on his face.

He understood.

Hikari nodded and opened the door. The agent made a gesture for Asuka to follow him. He walked the redhead outside as Hikari looked on from the doorway. His partner held the car's back door open for Asuka, and the German girl climbed silently into the car. Hikari thought Asuka normally would have hated being treated like this, because she always took pride in being on her own and doing things for herself, but now it didn't seem to matter. The fight was gone from her.

The second agent climbed behind the wheel and started the engine as his partner locked the back door. Hikari watched them, struggling with that nagging feeling in her stomach.

She closed the door, hoping against hope that she hadn't just seen her best friend for the last time.

* * *

"As you know, the current situation in China has created a vortex of unwanted activity," SEELE 01 said from behind the anonymity afforded to him by the monolith marked 'Sound Only'. "Needless to say, the actions of Gendo Ikari are to blame for this."

"We should not have allowed him such leeway. The fact is that a wild beast is the most dangerous when trapped," SEELE 02 said. "And Gendo Ikari is no less of a beast than most maniacs in history."

Musashi Kluge stood in the middle of the circle created by all 12 monoliths. The only light in the otherwise dark room was that generated by the bleak holographic stand-ins for people who could have been yards away or miles away. It was like standing in a 21rst-century Stonehenge where men had supplanted gods as objects of worship.

And while he didn't find the overcomplicated protocol of their meetings particularly bothersome, it was somewhat frustrating that they did not trust him enough to deliver their directives face-to-face. He wondered what they would say if he told them that even the electronic voice boxes they used to disguise their accents could only do so much, and that a skilled listener would be able to pick up their cadence. Given that there were only a few people truly in a position to be part of such a secret organization, it would only be a matter of careful research to narrow some of them down.

But Kluge had no need to do that. He knew the head of this organization from the days of firebrand politics following the Second Impact and the ensuing cover-up, when lies kept the world together in the wake of total catastrophe. Keel, at least, felt he could trust him, and that was enough. Through the years their relationship had allowed Kluge to get away with things that were far beyond the scope of even a Department Chief. Oversight was a meaningless word when the people watching the watchmen knew and already consented to the methods of those being watched.

"We understand this is a troubling situation, but it is not a motive for panic," SEELE 10 said. "The UN must certainly be aware of that. Chief Kluge?"

Kluge shook his head. "Oh, they're in a panic. I don't believe there is much room for reasoning at the moment."

"Ikari must have known that this would happen," SEELE 12 said. "He did order the Chinese experiments, and they seized upon the opportunity despite the UN's objections."

Of course, the Chinese government could hardly be blamed for looking after its own interests. In a world without any superpowers, whatever advantage a nation could gain over its rivals could be the difference between ruling and being ruled. Even the ban on nuclear weapons had done little to hamper their trafficking—governments had simply stopped doing so overtly and moved on to traffic by proxies.

Politicians seemed to think that just because they said something was illegal everyone else was bound to agree. They misunderstood the lack of opposition for acquiescence. That simply wasn't the case; battling in the field of global politics was too expensive and time consuming when there were other methods available to people with the will and power to exert their influence. The Evangelion was no different.

"The Chinese have gotten their due for helping Ikari," SEELE 01 pointed out. "We can only hope that this will deter other rogue governments from doing the same thing in the future. Now we can move in and fill the void."

"The recovery effort is not the committee's concern," SEELE 08 said briskly.

"No. What is of our concern is the fact that the UN was told that there were no more Angels in an effort to destroy NERV's bargaining power," SEELE 03 said. "This incident will harm our credibility in certain circles."

"Surely, it is what Ikari must have intended," SEELE 07 said. "To force his influence over ours."

"Indeed," SEELE 02 began. "We are aware of his intentions, and he knows that we will not allow him to continue his plan. However, although we know the final destination, we do not know the road he will take. This latest situation is irrefutable proof that he cannot be entirely predicted."

"Mind you," Kluge said, repeating himself on this issue. "We still have no actual evidence. Which doesn't mean he isn't responsible, only that we cannot pin this on him in the court of international opinion."

That reasoning was not going to stop SEELE from blaming Ikari, but other people didn't know him as well as they did. Other people would need proof.

"Ikari has sought to unsettle us in the past, by losing the Spear of Longinus and refusing access to the First Child, but we devised a second scenario," SEELE 09 said. "He must also know this, so he concocted a new scenario of his own."

"That is what this is all about," SEELE 05 said. "He is challenging us."

Kluge nodded. "Be that as it may, it doesn't change the fact that he played this one brilliantly. Had we had a more competent agent in place, perhaps-"

"We have already gone over this, Chief Kluge," SEELE 07 cut him off, which surprised him. "It is permissible for you to disagree with the decisions of this council, but the matter has been settled before. Nakayima was the best tool available for the job precisely because he wasn't obvious."

"But it didn't do us any good in the end," Kluge retorted, momentarily forgetting his place.

"I trust nothing untoward has happened to the agent," SEELE 07 said.

"No," Kluge couldn't help the grin that came over his wrinkled face. "Of course not."

He couldn't really know that, but as far as he was concerned Nakayima was alive when he left him. He didn't believe himself responsible should the younger man bleed out on the street as a result of his wound.

"To every action there is a re-action," SEELE 09 said, steering the conversation back to its original purpose. "And now we must deal with this so-called 'Angel'. This Samael. What an insult."

"Man is not meant to create Angels, just as he's not meant to create gods," SEELE 01 added. "To do so is to defy God's power."

"We still don't know the nature of this threat," Kluge pushed Nakayima's fate to the back of his mind and followed along. "It is entirely possible it is simply the result of unforeseen consequences. The Emerald Tablet is not fully understood."

"This Angel was created by the foolishness of Man," SEELE 05 said. "But it is a beast of destruction and does not follow the rules of Man, and not even those of the Most High."

"We know what it is," SEELE 03 said. "It's a spawn, the first of those which will be brought forth by the Tablet's power. But it seeks not just destruction. We now know there was a reason Naoko Akagi abandoned that project so long ago."

So they said, but Kluge wondered if it was the truth. Had they known what the Emerald Table could do—assuming that it really was the Tablet that created this Angel—and still allowed Ikari access to it in a bid to call his bluff, then they were responsible for it too. It was also possible they had seen this coming and planned accordingly around it. Kluge was not a gambling man, but if he had been, he would bet on the latter.

Neither option troubled him much. He had long since come to understand that sacrificing pawns was often part of a winning strategy, which meant that a lack of scruples was almost mandatory.

Cruel as it might be, that was the nature of the world.

"Understanding is the key," SEELE 02 said. "That is what fuels this fearful symmetry. And when it understands Mankind, it will seek the total annihilation of its humanity, much like the previous Angels, and it will find the being guilty for the wretchedness of the Human race: Lilith, not Adam. Once Lilith is brought to divine justice…"

"The world will end," SEELE 01 said.

Unless NERV was victorious, Kluge thought. And if it was then Gendo Ikari would be a hero in the eyes of a lot of very powerful people. On the other hand, if it failed everyone would be far too dead to care.

It was a brilliant plan. Musashi Kluge could admit that much.

* * *

The look of apology in Misato's eyes was, for Shinji, a validation of how deeply in trouble they were. She regarded the two pilots standing next to each other in front of her with the sort of motherly concern Shinji had all but come to expect of her. His guardian had sought them out, meeting them in the lockers instead of waiting for them to come to her, and began to fill them in.

It was worse than Shinji expected. He was still shaking his head, struggling to convince himself that this was a bad dream. The news broadcasts on the TV had been confused and even misleading, a garbled stream of information coming out just as soon as it was obtained. They simply didn't know much of what had happened. But Misato did know.

Next to him, Rei appeared calm as usual. Her surreal red eyes did not betray a single hint of emotion. He envied her coolness. Asuka was also present, sitting by herself on the opposite end of the bench that ran down the length of the room. She had her knees drawn up to her chest and her head buried behind them, close enough to be within earshot but still keeping her distance. All three pilots had changed into their form-fitting plugsuits.

"… so that's the way things are," Misato finished grimly. "The UN hasn't confirmed the full scope of the loss, but estimates have exceeded three quarters of a million deaths."

"A whole city?" Shinji said, disbelief and fear in his voice. "How are we supposed to stop something like that?"

"By stepping in its way and trying to kill it before it kills us," Misato said, and then turned to the blue-haired girl. "Rei?"

"Yes?" Unlike Shinji's voice, Rei's tone was soft and steady. Calm she might be, but anyone looking at her would have been able to tell that she was not entirely recovered from her recent injuries. Her posture was slouched, and Shinji had noticed a slight limp in her gait when she walked. Nothing pronounced or even very noticeable, but he had been looking for that sort of thing.

She's in pain, Shinji thought, looking at the blue-haired girl with open concern.

Rei would never complain, though. That was how these things went with her. Shinji kept hoping she'd change and start looking after her own health. But even now she didn't show any sign that she would. No matter how unconcerned she seemed, Shinji didn't think she was fit for combat and therefore should not be here. She should be in bed still, recovering.

Misato seemed to know that as well. She hesitated for a short moment, then gathered the courage to say what she needed to say.

"You will take Unit 00 and intercept the target at an area southwest of the city."

Shinji's jaw dropped, his eyes going wide.

Misato carried on. "We have arranged the requisition of a new kind of weapon that should make it possible to penetrate the Angel's AT Field from a safe distance. The SSDF is transporting it as we speak. I know you haven't done the weapons test yet, but that's why we'll be using long-range engagement rules. Using this plasma rifle should be no different than firing the positron rifle. Lieutenant Ibuki will give you more information on the site. Try to destroy the target as fast you can; that way we'll prevent complications."

Shinji felt a heavy pressure clamp down on his chest as she spoke. Was he the only one who could see that Rei wasn't all right? Was he the only one that actually cared? His father and Ritsuko would never think of Rei as anything other than a tool to be used as they wished. But Misatio was different. She should know better.

"I understand," Rei said, not voicing any of the concerns Shinji thought she should. "Am I to board the Eva at Central Dogma and take it to its position?"

"No." Misato shook her head. "Unit 00 is already on its way to the engagement zone. You will have to go by VTOL."

"When do I go?" Rei asked

Misato checked her watch. "In about an hour. Hopefully, everything will be set up by that time. I'm trying to get all the pieces together on the site as soon as possible so you can take the rifle for a test-drive."

"Test drive?" Rei said, plainly confused at Misato's choice of words.

"Practice," Misato clarified. "I want you to get some practice with the rifle."

Rei nodded. "I understand."

"M-Misato-san?" Shinji's voice quivered. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to his question, but felt obligated to ask simply because Misato hadn't mentioned it and it wasn't fair that Rei would be placing herself in danger when there might be something he could do. "What about Unit 01?"

"I don't intend to use it for combat if I can help it, but I will need you to stay on standby in case…" Misato trailed off, but Shinji knew what she was about say.

"In case Rei gets killed, right?" Shinji finished for her, regret, anger and fear fixing up into a new indescribable emotion in his words.

It wasn't fair that Rei should be out there while he did nothing. She had already died once for his sake. He did not want to let that happen again. Unit-01 could fight. It wasn't fair.

Misato gave him a sorry look.

"I don't want anything to happen to any of you," she said. "But we must prepare for the worst. Unit-01 will back up Unit-00, and Unit-02 will back up Unit-01."

"No." Shinji stepped forward, gloved hands clenching into fists. "You can't do this. You can't send her out there just like that. She'll get hurt."

He looked towards Rei as if for support, but the girl just stared back at him, silent and unmoved. He knew that for her it was as simple as following orders. She would do what she was told, it was what his father had made her for.

"I have to go," Rei said after a while, her voice was barely a whisper.

Shinji was suddenly lost. He could resign himself to everyone treating Rei like she was disposable, but actually seeing her doing the same was too much. He didn't think she had a death wish, but she seemingly had no instinct of self-preservation either. She would die if it was required of her. Again.

Rei did not know how to stand for herself—that it was okay to refuse certain orders—probably because nobody had ever explained that it was even a possibility. She stepped forward silently. Working on automatic, Shinji stepped out as well and threw out an arm to bar her way.

He turned to Misato, pale blue eyes pleading. "You can't let her do this. Not with an Angel. It's too dangerous. Please, you can't. Send me instead. I'll fight."

Rei did not acknowledge his disagreement. She did not try to move past him or tell him that it wasn't for him to decide. Like she always did, she stood there meekly and waited, a blank expression on her soft-featured face. Until Misato gently shook her head, her own face becoming expressionless. A face Shinji had seen many times before.

Misato would never put any of them in danger unnecessarily, he reminded himself. Not him, not Rei, not Asuka. She must have her reasons, and they were probably good ones. But they just weren't good enough for Shinji to risk losing someone else he cared about.

"Misato-san, please. Don't let her fight. She'll get hurt. I'll do it."

"I'm sorry, Shinji," Misato said. She wasn't looking at either of them anymore, as if she were ashamed that she had to put them in this situation. "There is no other way. I wish there was."

"There is another option!" Shinji shouted, barely keeping his emotions in check. Even so, his voice quivered like he was about to burst into tears from frustration. "I will fight!"

There was a pause, and for a fleeting moment Shinji dared hope Misato would listen, but then …

"Please don't make this harder than it already is," his guardian said, lifting her head. "It isn't about who fights. It's about who has the better chance of being successful." She locked her eyes with the brown-haired boy and in the second their gazes met, Shinji thought he understood the reason—the real reason—why she was so reluctant to let him ride Unit 01 into combat. His heart sank.

"You're protecting me, aren't you?" he said bitterly. "You just don't want ME to get hurt."

Misato said nothing, but her silence was all the proof he needed to convince himself that he was right; that it was about him and not Rei.

"So what?" came a shrill voice from behind them.

Both Shinji and Misato turned. Rei didn't seem to notice.

Asuka rose to her feet with a long sigh of exasperation. Shinji had almost forgotten she was there, not used to having her be so quiet. Her sapphire blue gaze was like a needle through his heart when she looked at him.

He still didn't know how to react to her presence. His mouth suddenly went dry. He felt almost compelled to say something, but what could that be? What could he possibly do to make up for the horrible way in which he had hurt her?

For making her cry.

Asuka was not the sort to shrink from a fight; young and slender as she was, she had always been far fiercer than her size or age would indicate. But he could tell she really didn't want to be here with them, and with him in particular. Since her arrival she hadn't said anything to either Shinji or Rei, with whom she shared a side of the locker room, and mostly ignored Misato while she briefed them. She hadn't even looked at Shinji.

But as Asuka pinned him with her eyes for the first time he could see the anger that had become such a part of her personality return. And something else, too.

"So what?" the redheaded girl repeated. "You say that like you don't know you're her favorite."

"A-Asu-ka …" No matter how much Shinji wanted to talk to her the words became stuck in his throat, which was now like dry sandpaper. His heart was suddenly heavier, yet beating faster. He was back in the kitchen for a moment, telling her he hated her and that he hoped she would die.

He was the one who should die-maybe then everything would stop hurting.

Asuka stepped closer, the swaying motion of her hips accented by the way her red plugsuit clung to her like a second skin. She pushed past them without saying anything, squeezing her slender frame between Misato and Rei, and left the locker room in a swish of red.

She couldn't stand to be around him now, Shinji knew. And why should she after what he'd said to her? The sad fact was that the only thing that shocked him more than her sudden reticence was that she wasn't screaming her head off. The screaming would have been preferable, because at least then he would have known there was a chance that she'd be okay.

Somehow, the sullen, brooding silence seemed as far as a haughty and outgoing girl like Asuka could be from okay. He felt awful for her, and he should be. It was very much his fault.

He looked toward Misato, a lost look, hoping to find some comfort. There were so many things pulling at his heart—the Angel, Rei's mission, Asuka-and he didn't know what to do, what to say. He just wanted everything to be fixed.

Misato regarded him with regret, her brown eyes sad. He knew then that she cared, even if she couldn't bring herself to show it at the moment.

"Shinji," she said, "I can't promise that nobody will get hurt. And if I did, then you shouldn't believe me. But I will do my best to keep everyone safe."

He nodded, though only because there was nothing else to do.

Misato cast a quick glance to where Asuka had disappeared beyond the doorway. "I'm worried about Asuka. I know I shouldn't ask you this, but can you look after her?"

Shinji gave her a stunned look that basically questioned her sanity.

"I know, I know." Misato raised her hands in self-defense. Then her voice softened again. "Listen, Shinji, there's a lot more to people than harsh words. But sometimes those words are like wounds, and they fester like wounds. And the more you let them fester, the more painful they become. You know, some married couples don't like going to bed while being mad at each other. It makes sense—what if something happens during the night and the last thing you said to someone you love is that you hate them? I can't even imagine how hard that would be."

I told Asuka I hated her, Shinji thought miserably.

Misato couldn't have known that, but her words hit him hard. Maybe she did know. Maybe he was so pathetic that she'd figured it out on her own.

"If there's one thing I learned from Kaji it's that you shouldn't always think you'll get a chance to make certain things right, because those chances may never come." And she gave him the warmest, kindest smile anyone had ever given him. "You shouldn't let fear keep from doing right by those you care about."

He nodded, feeling he ought to do at least that much to acknowledge her. Then he couldn't look at her anymore and turned to Rei.

"I will be fine," the blue-haired girl said before he could say anything, throwing him off momentarily. He was so predictable.

"I … I know," he stuttered, wondering whether he'd see ever get a chance to see her again. Like Asuka, there were so many more things he wanted to share with Rei, though in a different way. "Just … be careful anyway."

That was that, then. He couldn't keep her from doing what she felt she had to do. It filled him with helpless guilt. Perhaps had she had a choice-perhaps if she could have said no maybe he wouldn't be so badly opposed to this. Someone like Ritsuko would likely point out that his acceptance or even agreement was not required. Misato was far more understanding so she wouldn't say something like that. Rei was indifferent so she wouldn't say anything at all.

And it was that silence that made him feel like he should go.

But as he was about to leave, Misato stepped in front of him and put a hand on his right shoulder. "Shinji, don't think for a second I will not look after her like you do." She hugged him quickly. "Look after yourself, too. You deserve it."

She patted him on the back as she let him go. Shinji dipped his head in a nod, grateful for her kindness. He gave Rei one last look over his shoulder.

"I'll see you when you get back, Rei."

Rei Ayanami remembered not to say goodbye.

Shinji left the locker room, rubbing a forearm across his eyes just in case there were any tears, and turned down the hall towards the elevator that would take him to the main cage and Unit-01. When he got to the end, he found Asuka already waiting, a sour look on her pretty face.

Again, Shinji felt the awful weight of responsibility.

His first impulse was to go back the way he'd come, but his body wouldn't obey him and he ended up standing behind her. Asuka ignored him.

The elevator arrived and the mesh grid that served as the door slid open with a rackety noise. Asuka walked inside, her footsteps oddly loud on the metal, hollow even; Shinji hesitated again, but something inside of him forced him to more forward, recalling the words Misato had just spoken and her warning about not waiting for second chances.

Of course he didn't want to leave things with Asuka like this, but what was he supposed to do? She hated him and he told her he hated her as well.

The small moving metal box was quiet and uncomfortable.

A hundred times over Shinji had wished that he could take it all back. That somehow he could erase those words from his mind before his mouth could utter them. He had made her cry—her, the proud and arrogant Second Child. Shinji had never seen that side of her. Asuka had been broken before, when she was in the hospital after the angel raped her mind, but even then she had not cried. Tears seemed as alien to her as humility.

The elevator stopped and the mesh grid opened again, allowing them into the main cage, a massive steel and concrete holding cell for their Eva units. Unit-02, gleaming red, loomed over them on the near wall, attached to a metal bracket secured to the steel plates that reinforced the cage behind it. Unit-01 waited on the far side, bolted down to its own bracket.

After hours of frantic activity Unit-00 had been moved out, but the gantries and platforms remained bustling with technicians and support crews.

Asuka trundled out silently, walking by him as if he weren't there. Even is his current state of mind, Shinji could not help noticing how tightly the red material of her plugsuit fit her young frame, how alluring and visible it was. The garment was held in place by a vacuum for the neck down, but in her case it also served to showcase her body, every curve, every bump and crease.

Guilt filled his chest. He was disgusting for thinking of her that way, he knew. Asuka was more than just a body, and she deserved better. She certainly deserved better than him.

And she deserved more than just silence.

"Asuka..." Shinji hesitated as he spoke, his voice barely audible. It took all his courage merely to say her name.

The redhead stopped suddenly. Shinji moved out behind her, careful not to get too close. The last thing he wanted was to make her feel put-upon.

"Asuka?" he repeated, fumbling for words. "I … I …"

"What?" Asuka's tone was bitter. She turned her head to look at him, but their gazes met only for a second before Shinji looked away. He couldn't bear to see the hurt in Asuka's deep blue eyes.

Shinji took a deep breath.

"Misato said … maybe we should … you know, before going into battle." His voice began to tremble. He struggled to keep it as even as possible. "We should-"

"Should what?" Asuka interrupted, clearly growing annoyed. Her hands had clenched into fists, and Shinji thought she might hit him. "Are you done wasting time or do you actually plan to say something important?"

"Asuka... we might die."

"So?" Asuka chirped, her voice rising to its usual sarcastic tone. "You'd get your wish if it comes after me."

Pouring salt on an open wound would have been less painful than hearing her say that.

Shinji wanted to reply but stopped himself. He couldn't comfort her—that was a sad and well-established fact of their relationship, one he could no longer deny. Whatever she thought of him, that was the truth. But still he wanted to tell her how sorry he was that he had hurt her so badly, and that he would never do it again. He didn't want her to die; far from it, he wanted to see her smile and be happy. He hadn't meant to hurt her. He was just angry. She had to know.

But the words stuck in his throat, and it was agony. Asuka would snap at him, throwing back whatever he said. Shinji knew that as certainly as he knew she couldn't stand him being next to her in that elevator. The void between them had grown too great, and he did not have the courage to cross it. To simply say he was sorry.

"I guess I shouldn't worry about that, though," Asuka went on. "I won't be fighting. I'm not even a backup. I'm just a piece of trash they put in the Eva because there is nothing else to put in it."

"That's not true!" he quickly said.

Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at him like he was something she might have scraped off her shoe.

"You don't understand. You never have." Asuka turned around and stormed towards the massive armored bulk of her Eva. "Don't talk to me," she barked as she climbed the steps leading the uppermost loading platform set up around Unit-02. "Go worry about your precious little doll. I know that's what you really want."

Shinji sighed heavily and watched her go. He hoped those weren't the last words they ever spoke to each other.

Once on the platform, Asuka was greeted by a technician carrying a clipboard. They exchanged a few words, but Shinji couldn't hear them. Then, after a momentary discussion, Asuka brushed past him and went to sit on the edge of the platform facing her Eva, her legs dangling over the side. There were nearly a dozen other technicians on the platform with her, moving around equipment, dragging large power cables, readying computer terminals. None of them approached her.

Shinji made his way to his own Eva. The metal steps rang loudly under his feet as he climbed to the platform above. He found Shigeru Aoba at the top, holding a clipboard.

"Good, you are here," the long-haired operator said, one of the few crew members Shinji recognized on sight. "We should have everything ready for you in twenty minutes."

Shinji gave him a vague nod then looked up at Unit-01. The access plate at the base of its skull lay open, revealing the circular loading jack into which the entry-plug would be inserted, a massive black hole wide enough to accommodate a public bus and rimmed with a shining steel collar.

His entry-plug hung from a crane overhead, waiting to be moved into position. It was a glossy white with 'EVA 01' stenciled in black block letters. Next to it was Unit-02's entry-plug, decorated by a pattern of zig-zagging red, black and orange lines wrapping around its circumference. Asuka's crew had taken to painting pink kill marks on the side for each angel she defeated. It had been a while since they had that honor.

Shinji looked again at the platform across the cage and saw that Asuka had brought her legs up to her chest. She was staring at her Eva, her face frozen with a kind of zealous determination. Everyone was doing their best to leave her alone.

"Did you have breakfast?" Aoba's voice asked behind him.

Shinji shook his head absently, his attention still on Asuka.

"I'll make sure we get you some energy bars," Aoba said. "Can't fight on an empty stomach."

He would only fight if Rei was dead, Shinji grimly reminded himself. And Asuka would only fight if he was dead. The thought made him feel sick.

"I'm not hungry," he told Aoba.

The operator nodded and headed off, telling Shinji to let him know if he needed anything.

Shinji didn't see a point. The things he wanted most nobody could give him-not Aoba with his clipboard, not Misato with her strategies and promises, not even himself.

Dropping his gaze firmly onto the deck in case Asuka decided to look his way, the Third Child found a nice sturdy metal box in a corner, wedged between a computer terminal and a spool of electrical cable, and sat down to wait.

* * *

"They were behind schedule, but now everything seems to be in order," Maya Ibuki finished her report on the video screen. She looked frazzled, her short brown hair a tousled mop, and there was no hiding the shadows under her eyes.

"How long?" Misato asked. She had expected delays. It was one of the reasons she had sent her own team to oversee the deployment.

"An hour," Maya said. "Maybe two."

"That's cutting it kinda close," Misato said. "Is Rei there yet?"

"Section 2 dropped her off a few minutes ago. I'll give her a quick update on what the plans are, but I doubt there will be time for her to take some shots with the rifle. She's going to have to learn as she goes."

"Rei is good at that." Misato wondered if she should just tell Maya to have Rei read the manual-if there was a manual. "Anything else?"

Maya shook her head on the screen. "Not at the moment."

Given the way things were going, Misato couldn't hope for better. "Good luck then, and tell Rei I wish her luck too."

"Will do, Major." Maya saluted, and turned off the connection. The screen went blank.

Misato slumped down on the nearest chair and slowly rubbed her forearm against her eyes. She felt exhausted. After nearly twelve hours of continuous and increasingly mounting tension, the pressure was getting to her. And while she could not remember sleeping or eating since the crisis began, the emotional stress was proving much worse and the physical.

Briefing Shinji and seeing his reaction to her plan had left her drained. She had anticipated his objections-how could she not when she knew what he was like? But actually hearing the quiver in his voice, seeing the look of grief on his face, had destroyed whatever courage and certainty she had managed to muster. That had been hard, harder even than briefing the Commander.

Misato looked around her, studying the tense faces of everyone in the control room. Everyone was doing their duty, and she was proud of them for it. They knew what was at stake.

Shinji and Asuka must be waiting in their Evas by now, Misato thought. She hoped that it would not come down to putting them in the line of battle. If they could be safe then maybe that would validate her decision to send out Rei. Otherwise …

"Major Katsuragi?"

She turned toward the familiar voice. "What is it, Hyuga?"

"The UN Army has reported that they have taken their positions as requested. They would like for us to submit a set of orders for them to follow," the operator said. "UN Command has told its commanding officers to take orders from NERV. I have a full set of operational orders for them that have already been approved by the Commander, but you are the tactical officer…"

"Then I approve," Misato said.

He was surprised. "But I haven't told you what they are."

"I don't care. It's not as if the UN will have a vital role in this, anyway. We just need to keep them busy and out of the way."

Hyuga nodded. "I understand."

Misato stood, suddenly unable to stay put, and walked over to the center of the huge deck, looking over the large holographic display that filled up the front of the cavernous room with a three-dimensional topographical outline of the terrain. Half a dozen screens were laid out in front, each showing separate images. On the deck below the MAGI supercomputers hummed quietly, processing the terabytes of data required for the displays, their information transfer capabilities and, basically, everything else.

Folding her arms across her chest, Misato turned to the crew. "All right, people. It's about that time, isn't it? Haruna, has the MAGI been able to get a lock on the Angel's energy pattern?"

"No, ma'am," Haruna answered from Maya's old terminal. "The pattern has been continually changing from orange to blue and back. MAGI has decided to label the target as unidentifiable."

"That's just great," Misato replied. "What's the ETA on our airspace?"

"Two hours, sixteen minutes," Aoba said. He had only returned from the main cage ten Minutes before, but Misato was glad someone she trusted had seen Shinji and Asuka into their Evas. "The target will be entering Japanese air space within the next twenty minutes. It's slowed down considerably."

"Do we have an image?"

"Yes." Hyuga pressed a button on a nearby console and the huge screen in front of the room changed from the topographical map of Tokyo-3 to Angel's image.

Misato recoiled in disgust as soon as her brain was able to process the image. Unit-A was ugly, with a long snout and fat lips, and more beastial than any Eva she had ever seen. But the eyes … the eyes looked almost human.

"Why are they still escorting it?" Misato asked, noticing the large crowd of aircraft in the picture. "The UN was supposed to pull back. Have they finally decided to switch sides?"

"No, things are not that bad yet," Hyuga said, and with a few key pressed pulled up a list debrief of actions taken against the Angel. "These are Russian fighters clearing a path for it over international waters. There isn't much of a point in getting in front of something you can't stop. At 9:23 the UN began a full scale missile assault on the target. Here's the video feed…"

A small square appeared on the lower left corner of the screen. On the bottom, the square read: USS H. M. JACKSON (SSBN 730). At first nothing could be seen, but then a mountain of white foam emerged from the sea like a white pillar materializing out of thin air.

The missile appeared suspended for a few seconds before its solid fuel booster ignited in a thick jet of orange flame and the steel casing which protected it from the salt water was ejected. The bright fiery column ascended into the blue morning sky and was soon followed nearly a dozen others. They leveled off as the camera zoomed in. Misato saw their wings deploy.

"What are those?" she asked with a frown of curiosity. "Tomahawks?"

"Yes. Modified TLAMs by the looks of them," Hyuga answered. Then he shook his head. "Couldn't tell you what it might have taken to convince the Americans to give up the position of one of their missile boats."

Sure enough, the submarine's coordinated were now locked into the satellite as it was being tracked. Americans did not give up national secrets for free, and their missile submarines were at the top of that list, so for them to actually agree to launch in support of a NERV operation likely meant they had been promised something worthwhile in return.

"Maybe they just don't want to be left out of the party," Misato joked. Nobody laughed. "Any hits?"

The next image on the small square showed each and every one of the missiles smashing against the Angel's AT Field.

"All direct hits," Hyuga said. He seemed impressed. "Amazing fire control, that's for sure. But no visible damage to the target. After that, the Angel entered Korean peninsular airspace. The Russians, fearing that the UN might try a nuclear assault, issued an ultimatum warning them not to fire anything over Korea and set up an escort with fighters out of Vladivostok. Technically, the Far East Umbrella does allow them to do that. The escorts have been instructed to pull out as soon as the Angel leaves the international airspace," he checked the clock, "in about three minutes."

Misato scratched the back of her head. Another number caught her eye. "How did it figure out it should change course?"

"Well, the Unit-A had a full communication array," Hyuga said. "Assuming the Angel could figure out how to use it and understand it, it wouldn't take much to eavesdrop on the radio traffic out there. A better question would be how it managed to deduct that it'd be safer over Korea instead of over the open ocean."

"It's a smart little bastard, isn't it?" Misato uncrossed her arms and leaned forward into the safety rail to get a better look at the screens. "Its parents would be proud."

"I don't know about it being little, but it's definitely smart," Hyuga said.

Misato nodded. "We may have to shift our defensive stance."

The image on the screen changed to the map of Japan, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and the land masses of the Russian Far East, the Eastern Chinese seaboard and Korea. A small triangle marked the Angel's position on the map.

"The UN is already aware of that. So is Maya," Hyuga said. "Unit-00 can be repositioned to the northwest if necessary, but military equipment doesn't travel as easily as ours. We'd be looking at another lengthy delay."

Maya knows what she's doing, Misato thought. She won't reposition if it means losing the intercept window.

"I trust Maya," she said firmly. "What's the situation in Beijing?"

The screen changed again, and this time it showed the smoking ruins of Beijing. Almost half the city was reduced to a charred, black wasteland. Black smoke rose in thick clouds into the sky, covering everything with a blackened gloom. A deep crater was all that remained of NERV's Chinese Branch, surrounded by demolished buildings and twisted railway lines. The surveillance satellites and aircraft flew too high for the images to show any bodies.

Misato was thankful for that.

Hyuga looked away as he spoke. "The UN has diverted most of its land forces in the region to assist the Chinese government with recovery operations. The Russians have done so as well, however the Red Army is reluctant to cross the border without explicit permission. They are simply taking care of some refugees and sending supplies. Because of the magnitude of the catastrophe, NERV can no longer rely on its China Branch, nor can we depend on the Chinese government. No word yet as to what the total number of casualties is, but the UN and the Chinese government are being conservative on the estimates. Every self-respecting government in the world is sending or promising aid, though no doubt they expect something in return."

"It's too bad that there is nothing we can do for those people," Misato said, her tone low and grim. "We have enough things to worry about already."

"Speaking of which," Aoba began, "the civilian authorities want to know what we plan to do about the innocent people in the city."

Misato mused that one over for a few seconds, but in the end there was not a whole lot she could do.

"Issue a general alarm," she said.

The people in the city should already know the drill. The local government had been planning to begin evacuating the whole area surrounding the city, but they had lost so much time on the arrangements that the only place the people would be able to go were the underground shelters. With all the budget cuts, nobody had bothered keeping those up and there was no telling what sort of conditions they might be in, though certainly they would be safer than being outside.

"Major Katsuragi?"

Misato immediately recognized the voice of Ritsuko Akagi. The dark-haired Major turned as the blonde woman walked across the deck towards her. Like everyone else, Ritsuko looked tired. Her lab coat was wrinkled, with the sleeves rolled up to reveal nicotine patches on her forearms, and the lines under her eyes spoke of sleeplessness.

"What now, Ritsuko?" Misato said, narrowing her eyes. She leaned back and slumped against the rail behind her. "More problems?"

"Not really," the doctor replied. "Shinji and Asuka are prepped and ready, and Unit-01 has been cleared for combat status. I thought you might want to know."

"Thanks. Two less issues to worry about," Misato said, trying not to sound as concerned as she felt. "We'll have a great show shortly. Would you care to stay? I could sure use your help up here."

"How can I refuse such an invitation?"

Misato forced a smile at her, but it was a meaningless gesture and Ritsuko ignored it. Tired as they already were, they both knew the worst was yet to come.

* * *

"Rei, can you hear me?"

Maya's voice broke the grave-like silence that had settled over Unit-00's entry plug for the last half-hour and reminded Rei just how badly her head hurt.

"Yes," Rei managed, then bit back a whimper. She sat in the entry-plug's command seat with her knees drawn up and her hands on the control sticks. The silence had been strangely comforting—it was as if the rest of the world no longer existed and she was the only one left, but it did not make her feel well.

The throbbing was getting worse, and the pain in her head was like a hammer being smashed against her skull. Her whole body ached, and had it not been for the present emergency she would doubtlessly be bedridden. Doctor Akagi and Commander Ikari were aware of her condition; if they believed she could still exercise Unit-00's combat capabilities then she saw no reason to question them. Rei seldom had an opinion in matters that did not require it. They wanted her here, so she was here.

The ride in the VTOL aircraft alone had been exhausting. By the end of it Rei had been so weak and in so much pain they had to help her down. The staging point was a wide clearing at the junction of a major highway and a railway line, surrounded by forests and hills that gave way in the immediate vicinity to towers of equipment, dozens of vehicles and hundreds of men. Further east, the road snaked up the side of a mountain like a thick gray ribbon. Tokyo-3 lay beyond it, hidden from view on the opposite slope.

Two dozen other NERV personnel had arrived at the engagement zone with her, ahead of their projected schedule. An army of vehicles, trucks and other specialized equipment was needed to assemble the rifle and to tend to the Evangelion itself, which had been transported on a train.

Unit-00 was in a sorry state; its armor was an amalgamation of blue and yellow-orange pieces hastily put together. One of its arms was still missing, and part of the lower torso had been removed, making its waist above the hips seem thin and rather frail. Maya Ibuki had commented that simply getting it operational at all was an act of supreme technical skill. The last time Rei had been inside of it the activation test had quickly become an ordeal, but the Lieutenant promised they had, in her words, "worked out the kinks."

The power rerouting was not completed in time to allow for a full test of Unit-00 on-site, or the weapon it was meant to use. Cables had been strewn hastily on the ground in order to provide electricity to all the equipment, and it seemed as though the JSSDF had assumed NERV would bring its own power source. An argument ensued between the staff of both organizations during which Rei retreated to the side of her Eva to retch, only vaguely aware that some of the soldiers were watching her.

By the time Maya had come for her she had been on the edge of fainting. The Lieutenant placed her on a stretcher and gave her an IV to keep her from becoming dehydrated.

Rei had boarded her Eva roughly an hour later, and had stayed there for what seemed like an eternity, waiting, listening to their communications for instructions, and hurting.

"How are you feeling?" Maya's voice came again, softer than before.

"Fine."

She knew from the heavy pause that the Lieutenant did not believe her.

"I'm sorry I have to place in this position, but we are out of options. I'll give you a quick briefing on what this new weapon is and how it works. Try to focus. This is important." After a few seconds, the Lieutenant began speaking as if delivering a lecture. "Plasma is a conductive assembly of charged particles, neutrals and fields that exhibit collective effects. Plasma carries electrical currents and generates strong magnetic fields, but you probably know that from school. It is the most common form of matter, comprising more than 99% of the visible universe."

Rei listened in respectful silence. She had no more than a theoretical use for any of this type of information on a weapon she was about to use in combat for the first time. All she needed to know was where to find the trigger and how to aim the rifle. She expected the Lieutenant would get to that eventually.

"Plasma is radically multiscale in two senses: first, most plasma systems involve electrodynamics coupling across micro, meso, and macro-scales and, second, plasma systems occur over most of the physically possible ranges in space, energy and density scales."

Rei pulled gently on the control stick on her right. The high-density plasma rifle felt heavy in Unit 00's arm. It was not a static weapon like the positron rifle, which was useful only when fired from a fixed position as if it were a sniper rifle. Another significant difference was the fact that the plasma rifle required a great deal of power for its firing mechanism instead of depending on power for ammunition as the positron rifle did.

The Lieutenant was still talking. "Now, in inertial-confinement fusion, laser beams or ion beams energize the inside of a small cylindrical target. X rays then rapidly heat the capsule causing its surface to blow off. The resulting force compresses the plasma fuel, usually hydrogen isotopes, raising temperatures to 100,000,000 degrees C and densities to 20 times greater than lead. This ignites the plasma fuel and produces a fusion energy output many times the laser energy input, thus yielding extremely large energy gains."

"That is, essentially, how the rifle works. It shoots a super-heated capsule of ultra-dense plasma causing a fusion reaction without any kind of radioactive residue. The technology has existed since before the Second Impact, but the JSSDF and the US Department of Defense have adapted it for use with the Eva. The only thing we've found to be troublesome is the targeting system, so most of the software that controls the rifle's own targeting has been ditched. To compensate we have hot-wired it to your Eva's own computer."

"I understand," Rei said vaguely.

"In theory, each individual round should easily produce enough energy to penetrate the AT Field. In practice, well, we just don't know," Maya said, hesitating only slightly. "This stuff is all new and untested. Do you want to go ahead and do some targeting practice?"

Before Rei could reply another sound caught her attention. The blue-haired pilot immediately recognized it as an alarm siren, a long ominous wail echoing in the distance beyond the sloping hills of their mountain outpost-Tokyo-3's general alert warning. She had heard it a hundred times in her memory and in her dreams. Never inside an Eva.

Rei knew, at that moment, that battle was upon her. Her first, and maybe her last.

"Look like I'll have to owe you that practice," Maya said unnecessarily. "Prepare for combat check-up."

Rei turned her aching head towards the western sky, the direction from which she had been told the Angel would be coming, and wondered if she should be scared. Certainly a human being would feel frightened and nervous, but she was not.

She was calm and unafraid, and she wondered if it was another sign of her lack of humanity.

If I die, the pain will stop, Rei thought. She grabbed her control sticks and pulled them towards her body. Unit-00 stood.

* * *

Misato glared at the video feed with detached interest. The UN Army tanks and anti-aircraft batteries, along with a wide range of surface-to-air missile positions and artillery emplacements made neat lines sprawled across the west and northwest of the Japanese mainland.

The general alarm had sounded for the Hakone-Nagano area, but not for the entire nation as Misato had expected. While the UN units manned the forward positions, the JSSDF was still trying to have the critical area around Tokyo-3's fortress perimeter evacuated. Misato doubted it could be done in such little time, though she had to give credit to the civilian authorities for preventing a panic flight and imposing order. The shelters were filling up, as expected. The roads were mostly empty, and Unit-00 was ready.

The Angel had reduced its speed into what could be called a glide slope, its broad wings no longer flapping as it slowly descended.

Misato stood at the center of the command bridge, as she always did during these situations, with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her fingers impatiently. The tension was rising in the room—she could clearly sense it, and so could everyone else. Commander Ikari and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki sat on the observation deck, looking down on the bridge from their perch high above the proceedings.

"The Angel has entered the range of the SAM batteries along the Nizeka-Gousa defensive line," Hyuga announced as he turned slightly on his chair to face his superior officer. "They are going to engage."

Misato nodded.

"You really should call off this intervention," Ritsuko Akagi, who was now standing next to Misato, said. "They are only going to be wasting shells, missiles and money."

"Better their money than ours," Misato replied.

"It all comes from the same place," Ritsuko said smartly. "You know they'll just hand the bill over to us."

The first units to engage the target were the longer-range SAM launchers, followed by a barrage of MRLS fire. The visual image faded and blurred every time one of the missiles took off from its static platform. After a few seconds the first reports began to filter in through NERV's communication channels.

"Ground forces report direct hits on the AT Field but no damage," Haruna said.

"The Air Force is engaging," Aoba reported. "We have an airborne visual."

"Put it on the main screen," Misato ordered.

Aoba hit a button on his console and the gigantic screen on the front of the multi-tiered bridge flickered and changed into an image of the Angel from one of the airborne gun ships. And even though dozens of missiles smashed into and exploded against the AT Field, the Angel continued with its steady flight path.

"The Angel has come within artillery range," Hyuga reported, just as the tanks, mostly Type 90s, opened fire along with the artillery pieces.

The sky became littered with black airbursts of flak from the combined assault of both air and ground forces arrayed against it, but the Angel simply ignored the chaos that went on around it, as if the whole situation had nothing to do with it. It flew unbothered through the black clouds of smoke, gliding like a giant seagull covered in glinting white armor.

"Looks like they are serious, don't you think, Ritsuko?" Misato remarked, tilting her head towards the doctor.

"A pointless exercise." Ritsuko seemed annoyed at the question, but her expression betrayed a slight hint of amusement.

"Which kinda makes you wonder why they are doing it," Misato said.

"Militaries are led by bureaucrats," Ritsuko said. "And bureaucrats don't like to be pushed aside. It makes them seem irrelevant, and being irrelevant costs them votes. Even doing something that is ineffective is better than doing nothing. However, you shouldn't take advantage of that fact. We're all on the same side."

The image from the gunship changed as the camera rotated, the picture now trailing a pair of bombers in the distance. Only a few seconds later the camera placed the bombers in focus as the lens was adjusted. The incoming pair fired their huge payload of six N2 equipped missiles. Each and every one of the missiles smashed into the Angel's AT Field and engulfed a whole chunk of the sky in flames.

"Any damage?" Misato enquired.

"Not that we can tell," Haruna answered.

The camera rotated back to the Angel's image as it flew across the fiery sky, still undaunted by the air assaults. Then the Angel did something Misato didn't expect, or even think possible for an object of such mass: it rolled over and began to fly inverted.

Misato narrowed her eyes as another barrage of fire from the UN engulfed the sky. The Angel remained unhurt. Just as a third wave of fire closed in on it, the Angel put itself into a steep dive. It wasn't just flying around randomly trying to escape: it was planning ahead. A fighter pilot could not have done better.

"Altitude is dropping fast," Aoba reported. "It appears that it has decided to land."

"Looks like it's angry," Ritsuko said, sarcastically.

"Wouldn't you be, Ritsuko?" Misato said, shaking her head. "Those missiles will ruin anyone's day."

The Angel landed on its feet, exactly like a giant bird would. The earth cracked and trembled under the impact. As soon as it touched down, a rain of fire, shells, missiles and bombs came crashing down on it, followed soon by N2 bombs. The horizon exploded into a huge dome of light.

Once the dust settled from the multitude of explosions, the Angel stood, with its head bowed and wings spread wide apart, in the middle of a huge crater. Its AT Field created octagons of reddish light around it, somewhat like huge transparent shields held aloft in mid air. Around its sleek and armored frame, like a swarm of angry bugs, the UN gun ships and other aircraft prepared for another assault.

"Call them off, Major Katsuragi," Ritsuko said. "This is such a waste."

"What makes you think they'd pay attention to me at this point?"

The image zoomed in on the Angel as it raised its head. The dark eyes appeared to stare directly at the camera. There was a collective gasp from the people in the control room.

"I have a very high density energy concentration within the target!" Hyuga informed.

The bright flash of light caught everybody by surprise as it burst out of nothingness and expanded until everything within the Angel's proximity was incinerated.

"EMP wave!" Hyuga yelled from his console.

"We lost the feed from the Air Force," Aoba said.

"It destroyed them!" Haruna screamed, rising from her chair. "It destroyed them all!"

Misato shook her head, not too surprised at the girl's sudden reaction. Haruna was among the few on the bridge who had never actually been in combat before. "Calm down. The ground forces will be fine once the EMP clears out. Most of the aircraft are hardened as well. We should only expect casualties from within the blast radius."

Haruna looked at her with clear fright in her eyes for a moment then dropped back in her station. "Sorry, ma'am."

"No problem," Misato wasn't about to chastise her for being scared. Everyone got scared some time. "Hyuga?"

"The Angel is moving again," Hyuga reported. "It's resuming its course."

"All right…" Misato began, and as she did she looked up to the observation deck high on the huge cavern that was the bridge, from which the Commander and Sub-Commander had been watching the events unfolding below them. "Upgrade condition to red alert and make the final preparations. Unit-00 will engage the target as planned."

* * *

"All safety locks have been removed," the electronic voice announced. "Final lock has been disabled. Accelerator pressure is constant and stable."

"Brain patterns are normal."

"Pulse and heart rate are nominal. Sync-ratio is holding at 39%"

"LCL pressure is normal."

"Cooling systems are on-line."

Wincing, Rei pulled gently at the control sticks located on each side of her command seat and caused Unit-00 to respond by bringing up the plasma rifle. She had picked a nice spot located to the northwest of the area Maya had indicated as the engagement zone. It was a narrow valley flanked by mountains on both sides providing cover for her flanks and a good line of sight in front. This was not the original position suggested to her, but the latest report on the Angel's position and approach had required her to move in order to find a more suitable shooting spot.

The Angel would have to come through here because it was the shortest route to where it wanted to go, or so Maya had said. Rei was not sure that oversimplification would hold true-nothing could force the Angel to do as they predicted it would. Saying so, however, would have been both wasteful and disrespectful. It hardly made a difference in any case: any other position would have been just as much as of a guess.

"All right, Rei," Maya said through the communications channel. "It's all yours. We are evacuating the area. The target is approaching from the west. It'll be in your sights in under a minute. Good luck."

The first plasma fuel capsule loaded into the rifle with a quick movement of the action, leaving four others behind in the magazine chamber. With a gloved finger, Rei gripped the trigger and held on to it loosely. She used a hand to press the butt of the rifle against the Evangelion's shoulder to steady the aim. Her breathing was quiet, her heart rate slow and steady. The nausea was still there but she knew it had nothing to do with the battle.

Why was she so calm? Rei asked herself again. She should be scared.

The Angel came around from the west end of the valley, like Maya had said. The earth trembled with every step it took. Rei dropped the sight on the target's head. The Angel appeared sluggish, she thought. Almost as if it were sleepwalking. It only took the computer a few seconds to give her a shooting solution.

The Angel stopped and cocked its head as soon as it saw Unit 00. Out of curiosity, maybe. Perhaps it was surprised.

"You have a shooting solution!" Maya yelled. "Fire!"

Rei squeezed the trigger.

A bright bolt of white light erupted from the muzzle brake at the tip of the barrel. The rifle recoiled with incredible force and almost made Rei lose her balance, thrusting the butt painfully against her shoulder. The bolt of glowing energy raced forward at a fraction of the speed of light, traveling in an arc as distance and gravity acted upon in; for a second Rei thought that she had missed the target entirely, but the trajectory dipped at the last moment and the bolt smashed squarely into the Angel's AT Field, right in front of its head.

As soon as the bolt of plasma impacted the AT Field it lost its integrity and the energy of the hydrogen fuel contained within it exploded in a bright wall of light. There was no sound as an intense, man-made dawn seemed to devour the entire horizon anew.

Rei pushed the targeting computer's visor aside in a rush, and covered her eyes with a forearm to avoid being blinded.

* * *

"Nice Shot!" Misato said, struggling to keep a smile from her face. "Hyuga, what is the status of the target?"

The operator turned around to face the Major. "I can't tell. The EMP shockwave from the blast has knocked out most of our local sensors in the area."

"How long until we get them back?" Misato asked.

"A few seconds."

"I have visuals back on-line!" Haruna informed as she pressed a button on her console.

The bright light slowly faded away, and the image was brought into focus. Misato felt a cold hand tighten around her heart as soon as she realized what it was that she was seeing. An unsettling silence came over the bridge as the chaos and euphoria that had followed Rei's shot receded and the horror of what they were all witnessing dawned completely.

The Angel stood there, unharmed, amidst a sea of destruction.

* * *

"REI!"

Even before Rei could comprehend the full reality of what had just happened, the Angel sprung from its position and rushed towards her with uncanny speed. She reloaded the rifle, but with no time to aim she simply pointed it and fired. This time, the Angel moved away. It stopped in its tracks and leapt into the sky, as if it were a fleeing bird.

The plasma bolt exploded and once again released an incredible amount of energy. This time it did nothing more than hamper Rei's visibility. The ground shook violently. Rei tried to follow the Angel's trajectory as it spun around in the air like some strange winged demon. But the light that had engulfed everything blinded her.

"Rei, it's behind you!" Maya screamed through the comm. "Look out!"

Rei turned around as fast as she could and tried to bring the rifle up. She never even saw the Angel coming. Something smashed into Unit-00's torso. Rei felt herself flying in the air and then everything rocked. She felt pain on her chest and soon realized that the Angel had driven Unit-00 to the ground. Only then did Rei see the Angel. It towered over her, pinning her to the ground with its weight and holding Unit-00's head against the ground. She tried to kick it away, but it was too strong.

The Angel pounded its fist on Unit-00's head, making it bounce off the ground like a ball, and grabbed the downed Eva by the neck.

Rei felt the bones on her nose and jaw complaining as the Angel drove Unit 00's head into the ground again. She was gasping desperately for air. Her pain threshold long surpassed, she tasted bile rising into her mouth.

"Rei, get out of there!" Maya screamed.

Rei tried to defend herself by putting the rifle between the Angel and herself. She thought that if she could point it at the Angel there was simply no way it could withstand a blast at nearly point-blank range. But the Angel was faster. It smashed its fist into the rifle, destroying it.

At least it bought her time. Rei reached up and grabbed the Angel by the throat. She pushed it away with her arm and tightened her grip on the thing's neck. The pain in her head was unbearable. Rei could feel blood running down her forehead and across her left cheek, like tears, and she thought that she might black out, but somehow she managed to make herself aware that she had to fight or die.

Every muscle in her arm was on fire. Everything hurt. Still, she held on to the thing's throat and hoped that if she could break its neck she might have a chance. Rei clenched her teeth, in an effort to push away the pain and tried to focus all her remaining strength on squeezing the life out of the Angel.

Wrapping its hand around Unit-00's wrist and placing a knee under Unit 00's chin, the Angel began to pull at the limb trying to strangle it. As the Evangelion's head was forced back, the Angel grabbed its shoulder and wrenched Unit-00's arm back.

Bones cracked sickeningly, followed by the sound of tearing flesh.

Rei felt a tremendous stabbing pain as her Eva's arm was separated from the shoulder. She screamed, a blood-curling shriek of pain beyond description, and instinctively reached for her wounded shoulder. The Evangelion's flesh gave away entirely under the power of the pull and the joint popped loose.

"Massive damage to Unit-00's right arm!" someone screamed through the comm.

Rei knew she couldn't defeat the Angel. All she could do was try to get away as the limb was completely severed from Unit-00. Painfully, she gritted her teeth, and took a swing at the Angel's head with her good arm, but it moved away and caught her by the wrist. Rei thought that the Angel would rip this arm to pieces too.

"Rei, extend your AT Field and get the damned thing off of you," Maya ordered.

The Angel did not pull at Unit-00's remaining arm like Rei had expected. Instead, it pushed it aside and wrapped its hands around her neck. Rei tried to use her AT Field to push the thing away, but it engaged its own field to cancel Rei's. Then the Angel began smashing its head savagely against Unit-00's-against hers.

The Angel was just playing with her, Rei realized in a haze of pain. She was so tired, and hurting so badly, that she couldn't do anything to defend herself anymore.

Rei felt a sharp throbbing pain at her neck, where the Angel's hand was holding Unit-00's throat. She remembered this kind of pain. She remembered feeling it, even thought 'she' had never felt it before. Something inside of her screamed as the pain grew in intensity.

"We have contamination starting on Unit-00's main nervous system!" someone was yelling in her ear, though the words seemed to be fading. "The Angel is contaminating Unit-00!"

The pain was like an electric shock as it raced down Rei's spine. Almost unconsciously, Rei arched her back in an effort to simply pull away from the pain and closed her eyes, as if that action alone would somehow help her escape.

Her body—her mind—everything was suddenly burning.

* * *

To be continued …


	6. Samael

Notes: as always thanks go to Big D and Jimmy and a bunch of other people for their feedback. Chapter 6 is here. To be honest I never thought I'd make it this far with the rewrite but here it goes. A few big changes, and lost of little changes.

* * *

Evangelion Genocide: Extended.

"Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill"--William Golding

Genocide 0:6 / Samael

* * *

Misato Katsuragi could not hide the sense of horror that gripped her heart as the column of light rose across the already-devastated landscape and consumed everything within its proximity. Seconds before, Hyuga had reported a high-density energy build-up within the Angel's core not unlike that which it had used to drive the UN from the sky.

"Maya?" Misato asked, almost absent-mindedly, as all the screens in the control room vanished into static. "Maya, can you hear me?"

"Major…" It was Hyuga who called up to Misato first, turning in his chair to face her. "We have lost the connection. Probably due to EMP."

"What about Rei?" Misato asked, her voice quivering with desperation.

"It's impossible to tell," Haruna replied. Her eyes were bristling with tears. "We … we can't get any readings on the pilot at all."

"What is Unit-00's status?"

Hyuga turned away from Misato, checked his console, then turned back and shook his head. "We can't get anything on any of the frequencies. They're either not there, or otherwise disabled."

Misato nodded grimly, aware that at that distance the chances of surviving a blast of such magnitude unprotected were slim. The Eva's AT Field ought to keep Rei safe—at least for a while. And Maya and her staff had evacuated the area immediately before the battle started. Everyone could be still be okay. No reason to panic.

"The EMP interference is gone," Aoba reported. "Visuals are coming back up."

All of the screens on the bridge jumped to life either one by one or in clusters, displaying the ghastly image of the battle zone. Smoke covered the battlefield, billowing in thick brown and gray clouds. The Angel stood in the middle of a broad crater, its wings spread wide apart. It was still holding Unit-00 in its hands—what was left of it.

"No!" Haruna whispered, horrified, and quickly covered her mouth with both hands. She started to cry. Aoba looked over sympathetically, a sad expression on his face.

Every single person on the bridge, with the exception of Gendo Ikari, stared in horror. Even Ritsuko, cold and generally considered to be heartless, stared, visibly shaken by what she was seeing.

The Angel was untouched by the force of the blast, its armor dull and covered in dust, but Unit-00 …

Unit-00 was nothing more than a decimated carcass. Most of its armor was missing or burned through, its flesh charred black and peeling off in parts. As the Angel stepped through the dust, it folded its wings and released Unit-00, which simply fell to the ground like a discarded toy. The once-mighty Evangelion was now a ragged mess. But it wasn't the Evangelion itself that worried Misato.

Quiet prayers filled the silence. Whispering. Crying.

Misato thought that her heart had stopped beating.

"Rei…" Shinji's voice suddenly broke through the silence, loaded with emotion, shaking to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. "Rei…is she…is she all right? Misato? Is she … is she all right?"

Misato cocked her head, as if snapping from a trance. "Is he watching this in Unit-01?" she screamed, rushing towards Aoba and leaning over his console. "Damn it, is he watching this?"

"I…think he is," Aoba said, after a moment of hesitation.

"Terminate his video link," Misato ordered. "Now!"

But Shinji had already seen enough. As much as Misato wanted to protect him, there was no hiding the truth.

"Misato, is Rei all right?" Shinji whimpered. He was on a public channel—everyone on the bridge could hear him. "Misato, answer me. Is she all right?"

A knot of worried faces turned towards Misato. Aoba reached out and squeezed her arm in a gesture of support. Not one of them envied her, she could tell. But they all knew what she did—she couldn't lie to Shinji.

"Shinji, I…don't know," Misato began, shocking on her words. She didn't know what else to say. She searched in vain for something that would explain what had just happened and reassure Shinji that everything would be all right. Even if she didn't believe it would. But before she could say anything else, Hyuga broke in.

"The target is on the move again," he said in alarm. "It is within the Geo-Front's outer grid."

"Tell me, Misato!" Shinji insisted, weeping openly now. He had lost it. "I-is she all right? Where is she? Can you talk to her? Please … please. Tell me. Why did you have to send her?"

"Shinji…I…"

"WHY?"

His cry, however, was drowned out by his father's stern voice echoing from the observation deck. "Enough of this nonsense, Major Katsuragi. Leave the sentimentalities for when this is over. You still have a job to do."

Misato looked up at him, feeling a kind of hatred she had never felt since her own father died. "But sir, Rei is—"

"You can't help her now, Major," Ikari cut her off. "Deploy Unit-01 inside the Geo-Front. There is no point in sending it out there when we know where the Angel's headed."

"Misato?" Shinji's voice echoed again over the bridge.

Although a part of Misato fully understood that Gendo Ikari was right, she could not help but resent him. He could at least fake concern, specially knowing that his son was listening to him.

"Your father's right," Misato said, words she would regret for the rest of her life. "We can't help her from here." She turned to Hyuga. "Prepare Unit-01 for sortie through route seven. I want a full rescue and recovery team out there checking on Unit-00 and Rei ASAP. And get a hold of Maya."

"Misato," Shinji wept. "I can't … I can't …"

Misato sighed, though she understood. "Aoba, can you open a video link to him? Privately?"

The long-haired operator nodded. A small screen on the console nearby flickered, displaying the image of a young boy. His cheeks were flushed a deep red, and streaked by tears. His eyes were lost, sad, but once he noticed the video link had opened in his LCL matrix he started wiping away his tears with the back of his hands.

Misato placed each of her hands on either side of the screen, and leaned over it. "Shinji, please listen to me," she said as warmly as she could. "I know it's hard. Rei once told you that if you refused to fight you'd already lost everything, didn't she? But you haven't lost everything. All of us, everyone here—you have to protect us. You are the only one who can."

"Mi-Misato…" Shinji was still wiping away his tears, but she could tell from his expression that he was listening.

"Please, I need you." That was a cheap shot, manipulating him and his sense of self-worth to get to do what she needed him to. She felt like a whore—like she was back in his bedroom offering her body to him because she could think of no other way to comfort him. She was using him. Always using him.

Misato hated herself for it, but at least she would have time to say she was sorry later. And it wasn't a lie. She did, truly, need him. They all did.

* * *

Shinji could not hold back the tears, no matter how hard he tried. It was not like before, when after Rei Ayanami had died to protect him he had found it impossible to cry. He was so numb back then that couldn't even manage a few moments to indulge his sinking emotions. Now it seemed like the most natural thing; he could do it without having to try, without feeling that he was somehow obligated to.

It wasn't that he cared less about this girl than the one she'd been before; he cared quite a lot, but it was just a different kind of grief. Different even than what he felt towards Asuka or Misato.

He was sitting inside the quiet, comforting warmth of his Unit-01, like he had countless times before, and up until a few minutes ago, had been completely oblivious to the battle raging above. Then he thought to check the video feed for an update. The holographic screen had jumped to life in front of him and he had seen the dreadful image of Unit-00's devastated form in the hands of the Angel.

His heart had stopped. It felt as though his chest had become as empty as the deepest corner of outer space. And even before he'd realized it, he had started to cry.

Then Misato came up on his screen, and … talked to him. It seemed like such a little thing, but it wasn't the sort of condescending talk that took place between a grown-up and a child. She talked to him like she understood.

Like he imagined his mother would.

But, though it made him feel better, it wasn't enough. He was old enough to have figured out that the real world didn't conform itself to soothing words. Despite whatever Misato said, there was still the possibility that Rei was …

"Dammit!" Shinji smashed his fist against the nearest thing he could find, which happened to be his main console. It was not a gesture of anger, for he did not know what to be angry at, but rather an expression of the inner void he felt.

Hopelessness, guilt, loss—all these things stirred within him. But there was something else now that also began to take hold, sparked by Misato's words.

She needed him. _She_—not NERV, not the world, not anyone else. She. Misato Katsuragi. The woman who had welcomed him into her home without knowing anything about him; the woman, who despite everything, made him feel as though his life was worth something, who in the darkest of times had offered him a hand to hold.

And she needed him.

Shinji was not, and never had been, the sort of person that believed in epiphanies, that things could become unmistakably clear when before they had been as impenetrable as the night. But it was while sitting there in the dark of his entry-plug that he realized why he had to fight.

It wasn't that there was no other choice open to him. It wasn't that they all had chosen it for him and there was nothing he could do.

He owed it to Misato to fight for her, like he owed it to Rei and Asuka and all those who had faith in him. All those who had shared their lives, however painful, with him. But he didn't have to simply because it was important for others. He had to fight because he could.

Rei said he should, Asuka expected it of him, and Misato needed him to. None of them could make him. In the end it was up to him, and him alone, to decide what to do with his life and his future. But, while he could decide for himself, he ought not to forget that his future was tied with their future, his life with theirs.

And then Shinji felt the Eva begin to move. He opened his eyes, not realizing he had ever closed them, and looked around.

"Shinji, we are moving Unit-01 out through the seventeenth exit," Misato said. "This will place you in front of Central Dogma--directly in the Angel's path."

"Use your AT Field to neutralize the Angel's and engage in hand-to-hand combat. We have adapted a battery pack to your Eva, so that if you lose your power cable the Eva will switch to the battery instead of the S2 engine," Ritsuko spoke calmly, as if checking things from a list. "There hasn't been time to perform any test on the engine itself and we believe that if it's activated it could either swallow us into a Dirac Sea, or provide you with unlimited power. As tempting as that may sound, we can't take any chances with this thing. But even if the S2 engine works and gives Unit-01 perpetual power, human beings only have a certain amount of endurance."

"This means that if you loose consciousness as a result of the fight the Eva will, most likely, go berserk and we won't be able to do anything to stop it," Misato said. "So be careful, please. I've already sent a team for Rei. Don't worry about her."

"Misato," Shinji began, wiping his tears with a forearm, "do you think she …"

"I don't know yet," Misato answered without missing a heartbeat. "Like I said, there's a team on the way, but it's likely Maya will get to her first. All we can do is hope for the best, Shinji-kun. Rei is a strong girl. You know that."

"Yeah, I … I know," Shinji managed between stifled sobs, more to reassure himself of the fact than anything else. Rei was strong, but strength could only take someone so far. Sadly, Asuka had proven that.

"Be safe, Shinji-kun," Misato said. "If it's worth anything, I apologize for putting you in this position. I am really sorry."

Shinji nodded his acknowledgement of her words. He was also somewhat aware that it could be last time he heard Misato's voice.

Outside the canopy of his entry-plug, the dark was filled with flashing lights as they passed by, glowing white streaks on black nothingness. Within less than a minute, the sleek, armored shape of Evangelion Unit-01 emerged through exit 17, located a few hundred yards in front of Central Dogma's pyramidal building.

Shinji quickly scanned his surroundings. The dome of the Geo-Front, like a massive ceiling, provided a strange sense of confinement despite the massive space below. He could see the upside-down buildings at the apex, where they had been retracted so many months ago and were still unable to be put right. The forest of green trees, which represented nature's contribution to the concrete and metal fortress, offered a quiet serenity that, in many ways masked the conflicts that had raged so destructively in this place. The loss and grief and pain.

He thought of Asuka's armless and headless Unit-02, frozen still like a monument to its pilot's breakdown; he thought of Ayanami's nearly suicidal charge across this very forest, courageous and self-less.

They were so much braver than he was, so much better. This was all he could do for them, and it didn't feel anything like enough.

Shinji turned around, making Unit-01 follow his movements as an extension of the neural impulses that originated them rather than his muscles. A long spear was provided for him in a metal rack behind him. He grasped it firmly.

"No firearms," Misato explained. "You won't be able to penetrate its AT Field from a distance so you'll have to get close. Go for the core, but I think you know that already."

Out of the corner of his eye Shinji caught a glimpse of light. He turned and gazed up at the Geo-Front's ceiling.

Unit-01's sharp, inhuman eyes narrowed, as he understood what was happening. The column of reddish light descended for several seconds and expanded into an inverted cross. Shinji watched as the Angel descended amidst the light, like some sort of divine figure coming down from Heaven. It had its wings open and arms spread apart, more a demon than a saint.

"Initiate cover barrage," someone said on the radio.

The barrage of tracer fire poured on the Angel, a deadly diagonal rain of lead and steel painting steaks across the air, filling the Geo-Front with noise. The Angel continued its descent, the shells bouncing of the translucent hexagonal wall of its AT Field.

Normally, Shinji would have been reluctant to fight another Eva unit. The last time he'd done so it was Unit-02 and it was empty, but before that … he didn't want to think about it. It didn't make any difference now; Misato had told him that there was no human pilot inside this unit. It had been running a type of autopilot similar to the dummy when it transformed into the Angel. Not much more information had been provided beyond that and none was needed.

Nothing related to the Evangelion was ever simple, neither the Eva itself or the people associated with it, nor NERV and its secrets, nor anything else. But when it came down to it combat was surprisingly simple. Kill or be killed.

Shinji tightened his grip on the control sticks. He was no longer crying.

* * *

"Damn!" Hyouga peeled off his headphones and turned to Misato. "The Angel has punched through the armor plating of the Geo-Front."

"All twenty-two layers?" Misato asked, but she already knew the answer. Not that she had checked herself. It was just how things usually worked around here; worst-case scenarios were never unexpected enough as to require an answer.

"Yes."

"How can that thing keep blasting away like that?" Haruna said, shaking her head disbelief.

"It's quite simple," Ritsuko said from besides Misato. "The S2 engine provides all the necessary energy. If you pay attention to it, you'll notice that the Angel releases the energy in one concentrated blast. The Angel probably builds it up so that it can be used as a weapon. The intensity of the blast is likely proportional to the time the Angel has to gather and concentrate it."

Misato twisted her lips in disapproval. "Let's leave the scientific lectures for some other time, shall we?" She turned her head and looked at Haruna, as if to tell her to be quiet, and then back to Ritsuko. "Is there any way to predict how long it takes the Angel to build up energy to produce a blast strong enough to harm Unit-01?"

"An algebraic equation should do the trick. The MAGI can estimate the maximum energy output of the S2 engine, from there it's simply a matter of coming up with the right function."

Misato nodded. "Good. Do that. What is the Angel's ETA, Hyouga?"

"A few seconds," Hyouga answered. "It's approximately one hundred meters from the Geo-Front floor."

Misato nodded again, taking in that last bit of information and processing just as she was doing everything else. "Shinji?"

The boy did not answer.

"Shinji?"

"Yes?" Finally there came a response, and he sounded serious. More serious than Misato remembered hearing him in a while, anyway. The situation called for it, of course, and she would have been worried if he weren't taking thing seriously, but the tone bothered her. Shinji deserved to laugh like the child he was. Not this.

His voice brought back the guilt she felt at sending him out there. It reminded her of her responsibility towards him. Of all her broken promises.

And she thought of Rei, too, and of Asuka, and of how she had failed them as well.

Misato took a deep breath, regretting the fact that she even had to say her next words, and regretting even more that there was nothing else she could do. "Extend your AT Field and prepare for combat."

* * *

The Angel landed among the trees of Central Dogma making the earth shake and sink beneath it. Its wings swept backwards as it folded them in a most bird-like manner, and it stood perfectly still, hunched over, limbs hanging loosely by its side. Its mouth dropped open, showing rows of teeth.

Shinji focused on the thing—how strange it looked. Most Evengelion he'd ever seen at least retained a basic human resemblance. But this thing, with its long pointed snout, red eyes and featureless face looked more like some wild demon that had decided to storm the world.

He extended Unit-01's AT Field as Misato had told him, the air around him shimmering with energy. The Angel noticed this. It cocked its head as it brought forth its own AT Field, and the two opposed forces swiftly canceled each other.

Even after all that had happened, Shinji did not simply rush into fighting. He knew what was about to take place. The last time he had been in combat the struggle ended with him killing a friend. He still wondered why he had killed Kaoru. He would never forget that. But that was then, and this was now.

"Shinji, the AT Fields are eroding," Misato said over the radio. "Get in close, smash the thing's core, and get out. Nothing fancy."

Shinji closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly to gather his resolve. And he repeated the mantra that had carried him through so many tough times before. "I mustn't run away …"

He opened his eyes, determined pale blue orbs set on a serious face.

Tightening his grip on the spear, Shinji charged ahead with the speed of a world-class sprinter. Unit-01 advanced in wide, powerful strides and the earth trembled under its feet, sinking into craters.

The Angel did not react to the incoming Evangelion. When Unit-01 was a few hundred yards away from its target, it jumped into the air with incredible agility. Shinji held the spear with both hands, tipping the blade forward in midair so that his momentum would help the spear break through the Angel's chest armor at the time of impact, and aimed for the core.

The Third Child clenched his teeth as he tried to concentrate all his power on the blow he was about to deliver.

Then the Angel moved forward, perhaps in an attempt to impose itself on the Evangelion. As soon as the Angel came into his range, Shinji brought the spear down on it. The Angel swiveled its shoulders, almost appearing to loose its balance as Unit-01 moved closer to it, causing Shinji to underestimate his target as he swung the weapon in his hands.

The blade of the spear came down on the Angel's head. It tore through the armor and flesh, ripping the thing's snout wide open like a meat-clever cutting into beef, splitting apart the tissue around it cleanly and expelling a fountain of blood.

"Dammit, you missed the core!" Misato shouted in his ear. "Shinji, destroy the core!"

Shinji saw an explosion of red liquid that rose off the Angel's wound. The thing wailed and collapsed backwards. He tried to pull the spear out so that he could shove it into the core, but the blade could not take the stress placed upon it. It bent, and broke off.

Shinji cursed, ridiculously chipping himself almost immediately for having such a potty mouth. But he didn't waste his chance.

Unit-01 climbed on top of the Angel, pinning it to the ground with its knees. The Angel struggled weakly under the Evangelion's weight. Shinji ejected the broken blade from the tip of the spear, turned the staff around and deployed the secondary one on the opposite end.

He reached down and the Angel by the neck, hoping to immobilize it as he delivered the killing strike. But as he swung back the spear, Shinji caught a glimpse of the Angel's red eyes. He hesitated. Then two images came to mind: the first one was of Rei Ayanami's surreal red eyes, and the second was of Kaoru's.

"Red eyes."

'We are the same.'

The Angel narrowed its eyes. Shinji froze, something tugging at the back of his mind. A distant memory he thought he had forgotten.

Misato was yelling. "Destroy the core! Kill it, Shinji!"

But Shinji was listening to her. The memory had become a vivid image in his head, that of a sharp-faced boy with ash-gray hair smiling faintly. He didn't understand. He didn't have to. All he knew was that for some reason he could not put the thought aside. "Kaoru-kun?"

'Kill me so that you may live.'

"Shinji, get out of there!"

The light consumed everything. Shinji tried to turn away but there was no escape. He felt as if a hammer had crashed against every inch of his body at the same time as the force of the blast hit Unit-01, throwing it backwards. Shinji rolled onto his side and covered his head in an attempt to protect it.

By the time the light dissipated Shinji was surprised that he was still alive. Still in the fight—and in a lot of pain. His head felt like it was about to split. He rubbed it with a hand, shaking it. Then he looked up.

The Angel was rising amongst the smoke.

"Shinji!" Misato leaned over one of the consoles in a desperate attempt to get first-hand information on the battle outside and in the process almost pushed Hyuga out of his chair. Somehow, the closer she got to the screen, the closer she was to Shinji, and the more she could protect him. "Shinji!"

"Major," Hyuga pushed her off awkwardly. "I can't see."

"Status report!"

Hyuga quickly checked his console. "We can't be sure. Unit-01 appears to be untouched. The visuals are out along with the sensors. Possibly due to close-range EMP wave."

"The energy from the blast was not strong enough to harm Unit-01," Ritsuko said, her voice cold and calculating as always. Her icy eyes were fixed on the wall of static that was the main holographic display. "It was a last-ditch effort."

"How's Shinji?" Misato asked, the concern she felt evident in her voice.

"He's all right," Hyuga answered, hands moving fast over his console like those of a master pianist.

Feeling a huge weight lifting of her chest, Misato breathed a sigh of relief. Shinji was safe, at least for now. She couldn't ask much more than that.

"He had it," Ritsuko said from behind her. "Shinji could have killed it."

Misato wiped around and gave the blonde doctor a hard stare. "What?"

"He could've killed it, but he hesitated. He had it."

"The EMP is gone," Haruna announced from her console. She was still rather upset, as indicated by the look on her face, but holding on. "All the sensors and visuals are back on-line!"

Misato turned her attention back to the console in front of her. "Shinji, can you hear me?" she called out. "Get your progressive knife and destroy the core!"

Shinji tossed away the spear and pulled the progressive knife from the sheath where it was normally kept mounted on a retractable cradle inside Unit-01's right shoulder pylon. He held the knife firmly, with both hands, and took a step forward. His head was throbbing, but it was bearable.

The Angel did not charge. It pulled itself up out of the huge crater that the blast had opened on the ground, and just stood there, almost as if daring him to strike. Its head was mauled and bloodied, but somehow, even with the spear's blade sticking out of its snout, it managed to appear more menacing than wounded. Blood flowed like a river and cascaded into its open mouth, filtering between its teeth, and pouring down its chin.

"I mustn't run away!"

Shinji charged again, holding the knife in front of him. The Angel did not ignore him again. As Unit-01 closed in on it, it moved forward to meet him, treading heavily. The earth shook.

Unit-01 crashed into the Angel with ferocious brutality, sending shockwaves that seemed to break the air around them. But as Shinji tried to bring the prog knife down on the thing's core, it reached up with both arms and managed to block the blow. He then tried to overpower it, pushing against it with all his might. It was in vain. The Angel didn't move.

Shinji felt every muscle burning as he tried to somehow bring the knife down to tear into the core, but it wouldn't budge. Both Unit-01 and the Angel were now locked in combat and neither was willing to give ground, or so it appeared.

The Third Child did not expect what happened next.

The Angel sidestepped, reversing its grip and pulling Unit-01's arms forward. The momentum brought the purple Evangelion temporarily out of balance. It was just for a second, but that was long enough for the Angel to gain the upper hand. It moved sideways and, as Shinji struggled to take a swing at it with the knife, the thing smashed its head against Unit-01's.

Pain spiked in his head as if a hammer had hit it. In a way, it had—a hammer of flesh and armor. Shinji recoiled as Unit-01 was forced back, reaching for his head.

The Angel pressed the advantage, tackling Unit-01 and driving it to the ground with incredible force. But as it reached down to grab the downed Evangelion's neck, Shinji stabbed upwards with the knife in a purely defensive reflex. The knife sliced through the Angel's hand just below the knuckles and ripped through the flesh and bone down the length of its forearm.

The Angel bellowed, and as it pulled its shattered hand away, Shinji kicked it in the head. Now it was his turn to tackle the Angel, using every ounce of strength he had to smash his opponent to the ground.

Both the Angel and Unit-01 traded savage blows like a pair of lions. There was no coordination to the fight, nor was there any more style than one would find in a barroom brawl, were the only objective was to maim an opponent beyond its ability to resist. The two combatants simply proceeded to hammer each other with anything and everything they had and, in the process, laid waste to the landscape around them.

Shinji was having the best of it. He took the Angel down and repeatedly smashed his fists against the thing's elongated, bloody head.

The Angel, however, seemed to be able to take more punishment than Unit-01 could dish out. It kicked the Evangelion away and, as Shinji staggered to regain his balance, it reached out to grab Unit-01's throat. Shinji reacted quickly by pushing the thing's good arm aside and shoved his elbow into its snout. The force of the blow turned the thing around, the front of its head little more than a pulped mass.

Reacting with lightning speed, Shinji wrapped his forearm around its neck in a fierce chokehold.

The Angel collapse onto its knees as Shinji used all his might in an attempt to break its neck. He pulled, yanked and soon heard the vertebrae beginning to complain. The Angel reached down into the ground and came up with a slim object.

Belatedly Shinji realized that the thing had grabbed the staff of his discarded spear. There wasn't anywhere for him to go.

The Angel pitched forwards in an effort to gain some leverage over Unit-01. It shoved the staff backwards, into the Evangelion.

As the staff pierced through Unit-01 shoulder, punching through the armor and tearing away at the muscle, Shinji felt an excruciating, stabbing pain. Screaming, he pulled away from the Angel, reaching up to his wounded shoulder.

The Angel grabbed Unit-01 by its torso and, with Shinji struggling to get free, it opened its wings.

Shinji struggled, but it was no use.

The two combatants were airborne with a massive flap of the Angel's wings. Unable to think of anything else to do, Shinji began to hammer his fist into the thing's head causing it to lose strength and both of them came spiraling down.

They crashed into Central Dogma's pyramidal building, completely demolishing one of the sides in a deafening cauldron of concrete, steel, and smoke. Unit-01 took the brunt of the impact.

* * *

Inside Central Dogma, all hell had broken loose. It was as if an earthquake had just been triggered, knocking everyone to the floor. Screens exploded, alarms sounded, people screamed, and it seemed like the world would end at that very instant.

Misato fell hard to the ground, as did most of the other people in the control room. The lights went out and all systems were changed to back-up power. Then it stopped.

Above this scene of confusion, Hyuga's voice rose like a beacon. "Massive damage to the building's north side!"

"What's the status of Unit-01?" Misato asked, picking herself up. She looked around the room—other people were doing the same. Some of them were bleeding. Haruna was cradling her head.

"It's still operational," the blonde technician replied after checking her console from where she was sitting on the floor. Misato thought she'd put her in for a commendation.

"The building is not compromised," Aoba said. "Thank God for geometry."

Staggering, Misato resumed her position beside Hyuga, again peering over his console. Most of it seemed non-operational. "Shinji, can you hear me?" Misato croaked, but there was no reply. "Shinji?"

* * *

It was bad. Shinji could feel the blood running down his forehead and into his mouth. He could feel his body screaming, every muscle sore; his head throbbed. He wanted to be sick. But somehow he pushed the pain away and managed to concentrate long enough to get his bearings.

"Shinji!" Misato was screaming. "Shinji, answer me!"

The Angel pinned Unit-01 to the devastated structure of the pyramid's north side by placing its weight on top of the Evangelion. Shinji tried to push it off with a hand, but the thing smashed its head against his, making any strength he might have disappear. The Third Child felt as if his head was about to explode.

Why didn't he want to die? Shinji thought to himself. If he died, then the pain would go away. He wouldn't have to worry about hurting Asuka again. He wouldn't have to worry about protecting Rei. He would see Kaoru again. And his mother.

It wouldn't be so bad.

"Shinji!"

Like most animals, the Angel could not smile, but the way it curled the corners of its monstrous mouth gave it a devilish grin. Shinji clenched his teeth as he awaited the next, and doubtlessly final blow, but none ever came. The Angel backed off and stepped away.

Shinji didn't understand. For a second he thought he had lost his mind. "What the…"

Misato was still talking, her voice beyond distraught. "Shinji, are you all right?"

"Where is it going?" Shinji asked, ignoring Misato's question. It was not for lack of respect, however; he wasn't really aware that he had said anything out loud. His whole world was in a fog inside his head.

There was a flash of light and the ground trembled. Slowly, Shinji pulled Unit-01 up from among the shattered ruins of the pyramid and looked at were the Angel stood in front of a huge smoking hole on the ground.

"It has blown open one of our Eva exits!" someone informed him, Shinji didn't know whose voice it was. "It's number 43, I think."

In front of him, the Angel spread its wings and plunged into the tunnel that made up the 43rd exit.

* * *

"Where does that exit go?" Misato asked hurriedly.

"The vertical shaft goes from the surface to the main holding cage," it was Haruna who answered. Her eyes shot wide open as the words she had just said sank in. "Shit, Unit-02 is still on hold. Third Catapult. Main cage!"

"Close all the armored doors on exit 43," Misato immediately ordered. "That might slow that thing down. What is the fastest way to the main cage?"

"Exit 6E," Aoba answered. "It crosses over the 43rd at about 400 yards above the final barrier. In theory, Unit-01 can use it to intercept the Angel at door number 435, but it has 34 degrees of slope so an elevator would have to be provided. That is a big problem. The Angel's rate of decent is greater than our fastest elevator. We wont be able to intercept the target before it reaches the main cage!"

"All right, clear 6E and get an elevator ASAP," Misato said. "Shinji? I know you are there, and I know you can hear me. Listen carefully."

* * *

Shinji had moved Unit-01 had towards exit 43 and was kneeling on its edge. He looked down at the seemingly interminable darkness of the tunnel, lined with small lights that ran down into nothingness. To Shinji, it resembled the entrance to hell itself.

"Asuka?" Shinji repeated, a cold lump suddenly forming in his throat. He also noticed that his jaw hurt when he spoke.

"Yes, it's going to the main cage. Unit-02 is there," Misato sounded desperately concerned. Shinji could hardly believe what she was saying. "We are providing an elevator for you through exit 6E. That should allow you get to the main cage safely."

"Am I going to get there before the Angel?" he asked, feeling a sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach.

"No," Misato answered honestly, and he could tell by the way her voice dropped off that it pained her.

He shook her head. "What about Asuka?"

"There is no time to get her out of Unit-02. Even emergency extraction procedures would take—"

"But if the Angel gets there she'll be defenseless!" Shinji yelled. A part of him was aware that Misato did not deserve to be yelled at, but he could find no other outlet for his frustration. For his fear.

"There is only one way to get to the main cage in time to do anything—exit 6E," Misato repeated. "We can only hope that the Angel doesn't try to destroy Unit-02."

"No," Shinji told her as he stared down the dark tunnel. He was also telling himself, trying to convince the only person whose opinion could affect what he did right now that what he was thinking was not crazy. "There is another way."

Shinji ejected the power cable from Unit-01's back. At once the battery was activated. A small counter appeared on corner of his HUD starting at sixty seconds. He wiped the blood from his brow with a forearm, struggling to mentally block all the pain he felt as he took hold of the staff that was still penetrating Unit-01's shoulder and pulled it out.

"Shinji, exit 6E. Now!"

Why was he still fighting? Shinji asked himself. He should let it all end now. He had done his part, fought bravely. So why couldn't he give up?

Because he had to protect them—_protect her_. She needed him now, even if she could never bring herself to say it. He could not abandon her as he had done so many times in the past. He had to decide. And he did.

It wasn't that hard of a choice to make.

Shinji held the staff tightly and thought that even though the blades had been destroyed he could still shove it into the Angel's core. He could have asked for another one. He could have asked for any weapon he wanted, but there was no time. The broken spear would be as good as anything else.

"Shinji, what are you doing?" Misato's voice sounded alarmed.

The Third Child ignored her, knowing there was no point in explaining what he was about to do. If she cared for him, she would understand. And so he closed his eyes and dove, head first, after the Angel.

* * *

"Unit-01 has entered exit 43!" Aoba announced. "It's freefalling and closing the distance to the Angel."

Misato Katsuragi shook her head in dismay. The situation was quickly spiraling out of control. She was angry, but she could ignore what angered her the most—that Shinji, by disobeying an order meant to help him, had placed himself in a situation that was more dangerous than anyone could have foreseen.

Misato suddenly felt a cold shiver run down her spine as the thought of Shinji plunging into that tunnel hit her with full force. He was hurting, and in the closed confines of the cage the fighting was only likely to get more brutal. There would be no room to maneuver, and with Unit-02 there … Asuka was in no condition to fight. Unit-02 would only get in the way.

Misato didn't want to think about how bad things could get. "How much time left on Unit-01's battery?" she asked, somehow managing to shift gears in her mind and focus on what she could do to help..

The reply came from Haruna. "Just over a minute."

Misato sighed deeply and wrapped her arms around herself. She knew that if worst came to worst, she would have to give the order for Central Dogma to be destroyed. She tried not to think of that, either. Mainly because to give such an order was admitting to the fact that Shinji would fail to destroy the Angel.

Shinji can do it, Misato told herself. He will beat it.

"Major Katsuragi."

Misato turned around and looked up at the observation deck to face Gendo Ikari. He was standing, which was never a good thing. So far he'd stayed out of the battle, but she had a feeling that was about to change. "Yes, sir?"

"Prepare Unit-02 for combat," Ikari said in a calm voice.

"But, sir…"

His expression didn't change. A face of stone hidden behind thick glasses. "We will use Unit-02, even if it is just as cannon fodder."

Misato's heart sank. Suddenly she was cold. Though she knew it was a sound tactical decision, it was not one that she was in any way ready to make. Asuka could not fight. The Angel might ignore Unit-02 if it was left inactive, might not perceive it as a threat. But to have Asuka attempt to fight was a death sentence.

And Misato was not ready to carry that on her conscience. Sending the children into combat was always justified, at least on some level, by the idea that they had the means to win and could do so with a minimum of harm to themselves. That was what good tactics were for—her job. To keep them safe. She couldn't just throw away Asuka's life needlessly; Shinji was still out there, and as long as he was she had hope.

But before she could make her point, Hyuga yelled from his console and effectively ended the argument. "Unit-01 will come into contact with the target in less than five seconds!"

* * *

When Unit-01 crashed into the Angel, the impact made Shinji feel as if he had just hit a solid concrete wall. The entry-plug shook violently, smashing him around like a rag doll. The pain was unbelievable; he clenched his teeth as hard as he could to keep from screaming himself hoarse, but it was like biting down on a stick while being operated on.

But he remained lucid enough to realize what he had to do. With Unit-01 now clinging to the Angel's back, Shinji reached out a hand and grabbed one of it wings. He yanked, hard. The sound of ripping flesh filled the entry-plug. The Angel roared, more like a scream and the loudest sound he'd heard it make so far.

Wings mangled, the Angel lost its profile and careered into one of the tunnel's walls with a resounding crash. It could no longer create enough lift to keep it, and by extension the Evangelion on its back, in the air. Together, they plummeted.

Shinji grabbed the thing's neck and squeezed it, ridding it like someone rides a buckling bull, but as he prepared to impale the Angel with the staff he lost his grip on it and it fell into the darkness. He cursed again and held on. The Angel complained as it made one final effort to remain airborne. Maybe on its own it would have made it. The added weight of Unit-01, however, proved too much to support.

Falling into a massive shaft was the sort of situation that no one wanted to find themselves in, but Shinji was aware that as long as he kept the Angel below him it would at least break his fall.

He couldn't tell how long it had been, or how long it would be until they reached the bottom. It seemed like it took an eternity.

And then both the Angel and Unit-01 smashed into the first armored door.

Shinji's head jerked violently forward. Indescribable pain exploded inside his chest. For a moment he saw only white stars, heard nothing but ringing in his ears, tasted warm blood in his mouth. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. All he could do was hurt.

The armor plating below them held for only a few seconds, enough to give several precarious groans as the metal door buckled and slipped off of its rails. And then, it collapsed.

Shinji closed his eyes as Unit-01 kept falling into hell. But, as it did, he knew that he would be dragging the Angel along with him. He knew the ride would end in the main holding cage, and then, should he even survive the fall, he knew he would not only have to destroy the Angel, but also protect Unit-02 and Asuka.

Asuka …

Her name appeared as a single word in his mind's eye. Just one word, but it carried with it an infinity of unspoken emotions, memories both bitter and sweet. One word that meant so much to him.

No matter what, he would not let the Angel touch her.

* * *

The Second Child sat curled in a ball in her entry-plug. She was oblivious to what was happening on the outside world and hadn't bothered to for an update. There was no point—at any moment she expected the technicians to come back to get her, when it was all over. Rei or Shinji would be hero, and she would be left to seethe alone. Then the lights on the plug were switched on, and it was then that she knew Unit-02 had been activated.

At first Asuka wondered why they would do such a thing. Unit-02 was useless. It could not be used to fight. Then she remembered that she was still the third-string. Unit-02's activation could only mean that both Rei and Shinji had been defeated.

That thought made Asuka feel as if a cold hand had been wrapped around her heart. Shinji was probably dead by now. The anger she felt at her pitiful condition boiled over to self-loathing in a flash, like water meeting the fuel rods of a nuclear reactor. She wrinkled her face, clenching her teeth until they hurt, and curled even tighter.

"Stupid," she chided herself, on the edge of tears. "Stupid, stupid, stupid little girl."

And then the sky came crashing down.

It was as if the entire Geo-Front had collapsed on top of her. The ceiling of the main cage gave way with a thunder-like groan as the metal and concreted were crushed under some immense weight. Every inch of the enclosed space shook as the forces that were suddenly unleashed shattered its integrity. There was dust and debris everywhere.

Asuka thought she was going to die. Though she yearned for the feeling of impending release, at the time she found herself wishing it wouldn't end like this.

In the wake of the original uproar there was a grave silence.

Raised her head, Asuka looked out of the canopy-like layout of her entry-plug, knowing that at any moment the Angel would jump at her and she would die. As the cloud of dust, which now eclipsed most of the exterior lights, slowly receded, she could see shapes moving around in the cage, between Unit-02 and the opposing wall. She caught her first glimpse of the Angel's grotesquely deformed head.

Then the thing reached down into another pile of debris, and pulled Unit-01 out of it.

Asuka gasped, clasping her gloved hands over her mouth, and stared in muted horror as the Angel smashed Unit-01 against the nearest wall. She noticed that the Angel was only fighting with one arm—the second one was simply torn to shreds. Unit-01 answered by shoving an elbow into the thing's head and raking it against the launch ramps located on the opposite side of the cage.

The two creatures fought each other with an uncanny ferocity right in front of her eyes, but after a few minutes the Angel managed to pin Unit-01 against the cage's far wall, making it bulge outwards.

As the Angel wrapped its hands around Unit-01's throat, Asuka became enraged at herself. Shinji was done for. He had come all this way, but he was beaten. Judging by the damage she saw on the Angel it must have been quite a fight.

"Asuka?" Misato voice came to her as a desperate plea over the radio. "Help Shinji."

Asuka did not reply. All she could do was watch.

"Help him, please!"

Asuka shook her head in a combination of anger and despair, as a feeling of helplessness began to sink in. "I…can't," she whimpered in a voice that she never knew she had. "I can't do it. I can't do anything."

"Help him!"

"I can't!" Asuka screamed and then, as if all her strength had been consumed by that action, she sank into her seat cushions. Tears of helpless rage began to flow. She sobbed, bringing up her knees and covering her face with her hand, quietly repeating that same thing to herself over and over. "I can't … I can't do anything…"

"Asuka, please, do something," Misato said as her voice began to break down. She was losing it. "Help him."

Asuka curled up as tightly as she could, wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her head between her knees. She wanted to disappear, to hide behind her controls and die.

Then she heard a voice in the back of her mind.

And she wasn't in her entry-plug anymore.

The sky above her head was a rich crimson, cloudless, sunless and moonless. There was no visible light source whatsoever, the color was just there. Bellow it was vast, featureless ocean of LCL. It seemed to be miles deep, but only reached up to Asuka's thigh, and even through the insulating inner layer of her plugsuit she could feel it was bitterly cold.

Asuka looked behind her, making the LCL ripple as she moved. There was a dead tree emerging from the water, seven branches reaching into the sky like bony and twisted fingers.

Something, she couldn't tell what, drew her attention downwards, to the LCL. The ripples crawled across her reflection. It wasn't right. Her image in the LCL was standing straight.

"Why have you forsaken your feelings to the world?" a voice said, but not one she recognized.

No—it wasn't a voice. No words were spoken. They were in her head.

"Where am I?" Asuka asked herself, relieved that at least she could hear her voice. For what it was worth, she took that as a sign that hadn't gone entirely crazy. She noticed the lips on her reflection did not move. She also noticed an expression different than that on her own face.

"This is you," the voice said again, still in her head. "The place that exists between the conflicting realities of who you are. Somewhere caught between your heart and your mind."

Then the voice changed. It became disturbingly like her own, younger, shriller. A voice she hadn't heard in a long time. "Mama! Mama, I've been chosen! I'm special!"

Asuka felt a chill, remembering the memory that those words were attached to—her mother and the doll hanging from the ceiling, the reek of the hospital room, the tears welling up in her eyes. A second before, she had been so happy, and then all happiness died within her.

Unlike before, when the Angel had showed this to her as it broken into her mind, Asuka wasn't forced to relive it. She remembered willingly. But why was she remembering?

"She has abandoned you," the first voice said. "But I am here."

Asuka frowned, her fist clenching. "Who the hell are you?"

"She doesn't love you anymore. I do. I am alone, just like you."

"Don't hate me!" Asuka's younger voice said, and even she was surprised by how high-pitched it was. It was grating, too. She wondered if that was really how she sounded at that age.

"I don't hate you. I will not abandon you."

Asuka felt something touch her leg, inside her plugsuit right above her knee. It was warmer than the LCL around it, and it moved upwards, gently stroking her skin like fingers.

"What happened to you, Asuka?" the disembodied voice asked. "Why do you hurt so much?"

She said nothing. The fingers continued to work their way up her legs until they reached the glassy surface and then stopped. Normally, she would not permit anyone to touch her like this, but there wasn't anyone actually touching her, was there?

"The memories?" The voice whispered, almost seeming to read her mind like a book, if not her heart. "Why do they hurt you?"

"I hate them!" Asuka yelled before she could stop herself.

"What about him?" The image of Shinji Ikari appeared in her mind. "Do you hate him, too?"

There was a long silence after that. Asuka stared into her reflection, as if asking it what she should say, hoping to see the answer appear on that face. The crystal blue eyes stared back at her, showing an inquisitive glimmer. And finally she said, "No."

"Why do you hurt him?" the voice did not sound accusing, or condescending, or any of the other things Asuka thought should follow the kind of statement she'd just made. In her own heart, to admit that she didn't hate Shinji was like admitting to some lewd love affair that was best kept hidden.

"I," Asuka hesitated, "I don't know. I want to hate him. Like I hate Wonder Girl. Like I hate myself. But I just …"

"Do you want to save him?"

Asuka shook her head, her voice breaking under the weight of all those repressed and unwanted emotions. "I can't."

"I can help him. I have power. Do you want my power to save him?"

"Yes," she said instantly.

Her reflection moved below the surface, slowly bringing up its right hand and reaching it out towards Asuka. The fingertips did not breach the surface however; rather, they pressed against it as if it were made out of thin glass, like a barrier it could not get past.

Asuka understood what it wanted on such a primal level that not even whispered words in her head were necessary. She looked at her own hand, suddenly captivated by the slender, elegant fingers wrapped in black and red, the bumps of her knuckles. It seemed all she ever did with her hands was to make fists—weapons to hurt others, and hurt herself.

She reached out, towards the surface of the LCL. It rippled as she touched it. Her fingertips sank barely a centimeter, and then she felt something warm.

Asuka opened her eyes with a gasp, as if she were doing it for the first time in her whole life. Feeling a familiar tingling sensation, she leaned forward in her plug's command seat.

And Unit-02 pitched forward, restraining bolts groaning.

"It's working!" Asuka called out, smiling, neither understanding now caring to understand what had just happened. A light had been shined in her soul; suddenly everything that had made her miserable for so many months disappeared. All the problems in her life, the darkness that perpetually threatened to consume her, went away. They were replaced by a new feeling, one she had longed for and desired. She was strong. "It's working!"

"Asuka, help Shinji!" Misato yelled. She didn't have to.

The next time Asuka moved, Unit-02 ripped off the bindings that kept it locked to the launch ramp.

* * *

Shinji knew he was slipping out of consciousness. The pain was overwhelming and it intruded into every part of his mind. Everything was blurred. He could hear the voices fighting again in his head, just as he did every time he closed his eyes, and could no longer tell if they were on the radio or in his head.

The Angel was looking at him, its red eyes glowing from among the bloodied mass that was the head to which they belonged. Something was wrong in his chest—every breath burned like fire.

And all the while the counter on his HUD ticked down to zero. Nobody knew for sure what would happen after that. If he made it that long, that was. Shinji didn't think that he would.

But just as he was ready to welcome the darkness, a red arm wrapped itself around the white neck in front of him. Red and orange. Only one person was associated with those colors in his mind.

Red and orange meant …

His vision clouded, the Third Child looked over the Angel's shoulder just in time to see Unit-02 place a chokehold on the thing.

* * *

"Get away from him!" Asuka squeezed the Angel's neck with all her strength, trying to pull it away from Unit-01, hearing the vertebrae cracking. "I won't let you hurt him anymore!"

The Angel wailed as she snapped his neck.

The Second Child had to fight in order to wipe a grin from her face. She managed to tear the Angel from Unit-01 and smashed it against a nearby wall. The thing collapsed in a bloody heap. Asuka began bashing it with her fists and, eventually, began kicking it. With its neck now broken, it could do very little to defend itself.

"Die!" Asuka grabbed the Angel by the neck and proceeded to repeatedly hammer its head against everything she could find—bulkheads, walls, steel beams, chunks of fallen concrete, everything. With a final blow, she caused its head to explode in a fountain of blood, muscle and tissue, like a watermelon full of gore.

But even then she didn't stop—she was enjoying herself. And when she could not bash it against anything else, she began stomping on it.

"Die! Die! Die!"

"Major Katsuragi, de-activate Unit-01 while we still have time," Gendo Ikari commanded from his perch. His voice was hard. "Unit-02 will take care of the rest of this operation."

"Yes, sir." Misato nodded weakly. She gave Hyuga an exhausted glance "How much power left?"

"36 seconds," Hyuga answered dutifully. She thought he had to be tired too, even if he was too much of a consummate professional to show it. When this was over she would have to find a way to make it up to him.

"Begin de-activation procedures," Ritsuko said. "Emergency steps only."

The small cadre of technicians went to work. Misato left them to it.

"I'm picking up a high density energy pattern," Hyuga said suddenly. "The energy is accumulating on itself. It looks like the Angel is attempting some sort of self-destruct attack."

"If that thing goes it'll kill every living creature in a 20 mile radius," Aoba said from his console across the computer bank.

Misato sighed. It just didn't get easy today. They finally had the Angel down and now it was trying to kill them all. "Asuka, can you hear me?" she called over the comm.

It took a second but the redhead finally replied, her voice shrill and put-upon. "I'm a little busy right now, in case you haven't noticed!"

Same old smarmy Asuka, Misato thought to herself. Well, at least she was talking again. Nobody understood what had just happened—even Ritsuko was mum—but it was a good thing it had. "It'll self destruct," Misato said. "You have to kill it fast."

"How much time?"

Misato checked with Hyuga.

"The energy concentration has surpassed our safety levels, I give it 25 seconds before critical threshold," the operator said.

"25 seconds," Asuka repeated quickly before Misato could relay. "Got it."

"If you can't stop it when it reaches 10, place it on the launch ramp," Misato said. "We'll eject it to the outside. It will be bad but maybe we'll live."

To that, Asuka did not reply.

* * *

This time Asuka didn't waste a second. As soon as the Angel hit the ground from her latest body slam, she pinned it with her knees and ripped open its chest with the progressive knife she had taken from Unit-02's shoulder a split second before.

And then the core was left exposed.

Releasing a single scream filled with anger and hate of the past months, Asuka buried the vibrating knife on the dark sphere that was the Angel's core. It did not collapse as she had expected. Instead, the knife's sonic waves began to spark on contact with the core's molecules. Asuka pressed the knife harder, shifting her body forward to place more of Unit-02's weight on the blade.

"Die!"

Asuka pushed aside the pain in her hands and gave all her strength to the progressive knife. She held it so tightly that her knuckles began to hurt, the handle cutting into her palms. Her arms began to hurt, but still she ignored the pain.

"Fifteen," Misato called out unnecessarily. Asuka could see the clock displayed in front of her.

The Second Child leaned her body forward so that she practically bent over on her seat, pushing as hard as she could on her control yokes. Now the entire weight of the Eva was placed on the knife. It would either cut through the core or break.

"Ten. Asuka, get rid of it. We'll launch it to the outside"

"NO!" Asuka yelled, shaking her head and gritting her teeth. "It's mine!" she growled. "I will kill it!"

"It's not worth the danger, Asuka!"

"Three!" Asuka began counting to herself, pushing desperately on the control yokes, trying to transfer as much of her own strength through the Eva. Her pretty face was twisted in a sick, vicious snarl. She was less a teenage girl and more a warrior blinded by bloodlust. "Two, come on!"

"Please, Asuka, you don't have to sacrifice everyone's lives for your—"

"Three!"

The core began to crack.

Asuka pushed the knife deeper into the sphere, hoping, praying she would not die with it. But as she counted the final number in her mind, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the end, only vaguely aware that she might have just killed everyone who had ever shown her kindness since coming to Japan.

"One."

The explosion she expected never came. Instead there was silence, interrupted only by the buzzing sound of the knife's sonic blade.

Silence.

The core imploded in a fountain of blood.

Slowly, Asuka half-opened her eyes. She peered outside cautiously, and then every muscle of her body relaxed as she realized that the Angel's core had been crushed.

"The energy concentration is dissipating." Hyuga reported in her ear.

Bright, hot pride blossoming in her chest, the Second Child looked to her right and saw Unit-01, it's purple armor heavily battered, slumped several hundred feet away amidst the ruble of the main holding cage. Something tiny and squirmy moved inside her chest, close to her heart. For a second she fought the urge to ask about Shinji. He certainly knew how to make a mess.

Asuka straightened herself up and pulled away from the dead Angel as she did, kicking it one last time for good measure.

"It's dead," Misato said. Her voice sounded rather odd. "You did it. Happy?"

Asuka did not reply. She sat in her entry-plug and stared at Unit-01, while the images of what had just happened strolled in her head. She could not understand any of it, as if it were all some kind of wild dream, but, while the magnitude escaped her, one single fact didn't. She pulled at her control sticks and Unit-02 moved its arm accordingly.

"It really works," Asuka told herself, not caring if Misato or anyone else was listening. "Mama, are you watching? It works. It really works."

"Asuka, are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine." the redhead replied. Then added in a more haughty tone, "Of course I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

But as she started to take stock, Asuka felt something was different. She knew that she should be happy but, somehow, was not—proud, sure. Not happy. It did not feel entirely right. It was not exactly like before, when her happiness depended on her ability to use Eva. She was piloting her beloved Unit-02 again, so why wasn't she happy?

It didn't make sense, but …

She looked at her left hand, remembering what she had seen, the warm touch in her dream. Something had been there with her, watching after her, protecting her, and now it was different.

Asuka could not comprehend the strange sensation taking hold over her heart—not disappointment, not anger, just a deep sense of loss. As though something precious had slipped through her fingers and she didn't even know what it was. That she had ever had it, a soothing presence that left only the silence and gloom of the entry-plug in its absence.

But Asuka was long since used to losing things. She had grown accustomed to the dull ache that came with it. And so she found it disturbingly easy to push such feelings aside. Whatever was bothering her, it would go away, she was sure. Her Eva was working again. If she had that, she didn't need anything else.

Finding some comfort in that thought, the Second Child leaned back on her seat, nuzzling her slender body against the cushions. This was where she belonged; this was home. And she hoped that if she kept telling that to herself it might feel less empty.

* * *

She was hurting. Even in her head, floating somewhere in the blank abyss between consciousness and unconsciousness, she was hurting. It wasn't just regular pain, either. Not merely electrical impulses shooting up her spine and into her mind. No, that kind of pain stopped. This pain went deeper, like it was a part of her soul.

At first the pain was like a haze, everywhere at once, a red mist. But slowly it became condensed into tiny clusters, gathering nerves and neurons into searing points of glowing flame. The brightness spread across the abyss, burning as it went, like a tide of ejected gas from a dying star.

Slowly, the abyss became shallower and shallower. Slowly, the star turned night into day. And slowly, Rei Ayanami opened her eyes.

The blue sky was above her, white clouds drifting lazily. And immediately she rolled onto her side, dry heaving. Her stomach was empty; there was nothing left to retch. Red eyes squeezed shut, she clutched the ground with a gloved hand, leaving small trenches were her fingers dug into the soil.

Only vaguely did her realize she was lying on a stretcher, and only because it hurt did she notice the IV in her right wrist. And only because she heard a soft, soothing whisper did she look up.

There was a girl kneeling besides her, holding the IV bag in her hands. She wore the tan uniform of NERV, her blond hair was dirty, and her skin caked with dirt.

Rei head the whisper again. The girl was talking. " … move. You'll be fine now. Help is coming."

It was then that she remembered. "Angel …" she croaked, her throat scratchy and dry.

"Dead," the girl said. "Lieutenant Ibuki has been in contact with Dogma. The Second Child killed it in the main cage. Now, please. You are badly hurt." She placed a hand on Rei's shoulder and slowly eased her onto her back.

Pain shot through her spine like a hot knife. " …hurts …"

"Sorry," the girl stiffed a sob. "We used up all the morphine. When we pulled you out of the entry-plug … you were in so much pain."

She took Rei's hand, and held it tightly. Human contact—soothing, warm, completely unlike what synching to her Eva felt like, and unlike everything she had just experienced. It was a welcome reminder that she was still alive.

* * *

On the observation deck, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki hung up the phone. "Lieutenant Ibuki has recovered the First Child. So it seems the day belongs to us after all."

"Indeed it does," Ikari replied as he stood up from his desk. "Unit-02 came through for us at the last moment. The start-up program did what it was supposed to."

Fuyutsuki nodded grimly. "Now we must wait to see what price will be extracted from us in exchange for our victory," he said. "The start-up program in Unit-02s's coding is a double-edged sword."

"It is what it is," Ikari said. "It still came too close for comfort. I would have preferred not to expose Unit-01 to any possible contamination from the Angel but the way things turned out seem to justify our actions."

"Not everything worked out in our favor, however. Unit-00 was demolished and the damage to the Geo-Front and Central Dogma is enormous." Fuyutsuki pointed out. "It will take months to repair."

"Those issues can be resolved with time and money. I don't intend to get Unit-00 back in combat condition. Now that we know that it works, Unit-02 should be more than enough to deal with any threat--and we can always improvise."

Second-guessing was not in Fuyutsuki's nature, but things like this made him wonder. He'd known Ikari long enough to know the man was neither impatient nor reckless, and that was the one thing that kept any possibly disagreement in check. In the end, he trusted that Ikari was at least aware of the consequences of his actions. "Unit-02 could become very unstable," he said.

"I am not concerned as long as we can control Unit-02. When the time comes it will help us deal with our greatest foe. I am more interested in the events that will now take place in the world. You must remember, sensei, with more Angels NERV is a necessity. We have become essential once again to the world's defense. "

"You mean NERV is untouchable," Fuyutsuki said.

"You are perceptive as always." Ikari turned around and walked mechanically towards the exit. "Let the crew celebrate. We still have other things to take care of."

* * *

The former housemates waited on the brightly lit hallway leading Rei's hospital room, somewhere deep in the Cranial Nerve Ward. It was the first time all three of them were together. None of them had said anything. The disinfected air felt heavy, loaded with the unspoken tension.

Shinji sat quietly on the bench closest to the door, dressed in loose gray pajamas provided to him. His forehead was wrapped in a bandage, his arm in a sling, and although the pain in chest had subsided it still hurt when he breathed. He had taken quite a beating—aside from minor scrapes and bumps, he'd come away with a concussion, bruised ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. Four days out, he was still very tender.

Asuka, on the other hand, had gone unscathed. She stood beyond the end of the bench, opposite Misato, leaning against the wall with her arms folded over chest, an annoyed look of impatience on her face. She was clad in her school uniform, hair pulled up by her neural connectors. It was clear she did not want to be there.

To be honest, Shinji was surprised that she was. But he was far too worried about Rei and too fearful of incurring her ire so he said nothing. He was glad she was there, even if he wasn't entirely comfortable. Being in the hospital meant having lots of time and nothing to do, and he'd spent a lot of it thinking about what he would say to her when he saw her. Now that she was there, he couldn't remember half the stuff. And he didn't dare say the other half.

Misato had not tried to push him into talking either. She seemed to agree that their rift was something that could not be fixed until they were ready. Clearly, neither one of them was yet, but the fact that Asuka was there at all had to mean something.

Almost as if bidden by his thoughts, the German redhead sighed. "This is taking too long," she complained but her voice lacked her usual tone. It was low, like was trying not to sound whiny. "I'm hungry."

Misato, however, did not seem pleased.

"It's not nice to whine, Asuka," the Major replied in the most commanding voice she could muster at the moment, which was really not very commanding. "I promised I would take you to lunch afterwards."

"You said this would only take a few minutes. You tricked me."

"I did no such thing." Misato shook her head. "Aren't you in the least concerned for Rei?"

"No," Asuka said without missing a beat. "Why would I be?"

"Well, I am concerned," Misato began and, as she did, turned towards the sitting boy, "and Shinji is too. So we've got you at a 2-1 disadvantage. Isn't that right Shinji?"

Shinji remained silent. Asuka's dislike for Rei was nothing new, but he wished she could be less dismissive about it. Having gone through so much herself, he'd expected that at least she'd be able to understand that it was normal for people to worry about each other. And if it had been her in Rei's condition he would be worried about her too. He wasn't sure he would expect her to return the courtesy, though.

"I don't care," Asuka said.

Misato narrowed her eyes. "Well, screw democracy then. I'm paying for lunch so I hold all the cards," she said. "We are here to check on Rei. Period."

"Wonder Girl must feel like she is the most popular girl in the world," Asuka said snippily. "Pathetic."

"Keep it up and you'll have to pay for your own food."

"I don't know why you care," Asuka snapped. "She's just a doll."

"I swear if you start with that …" Misato snapped back, seemingly very close to losing her patience, but stopped short of actually voicing a threat.

Asuka fell silent with all the manner of a petulant little girl being chastised by a parent, her expression slightly hurt.

"Sorry," Misato said, shaking her head. "I don't know what came over me."

"Why do you all defend her?" Asuka began and, as she did, her voice began raising as well. "It's not like you owe her anything. So why am I the one who gets slapped in the face for saying what I think of her? No one ever defends me."

"Asuka, it's not like that—" Misato started, but Asuka cut her short.

"Why do we have to be here?" She pushed off the wall. "Why do I have to care? When I was in the hospital, nobody ever came to see me. Nobody cared, so why should I care for her?"

Misato did not take the bait; the worst possible thing she could do was to argue with her when she got like this. It was better to let it go. Deprived of her chance to vent, Asuka groaned and headed down the hallway.

"Where are you going?"

"To find a vending machine," Asuka said, without looking back. "Let me know when you are done."

"Don't wander off too far!" Misato called out as the girl turned the corner. Then she turned to Shinji once again.

Just as Misato getting ready to say something, the door to Rei's hospital room slipped open and Dr. Ritsuko Akagi emerged, holding a clipboard and a cup filled with a yellow liquid.

Misato immediately diverted her gaze from Shinji over to the doctor. "How is she?"

"Not well enough for visitors," Ritsuko said as she turned to Shinji. "Sorry, but you'd do more harm than good right now. Maybe later."

Shinji didn't say anything. He was used to disappointment, so it didn't bother him as much as it should. The emptiness from a second ago was still there. Nothing had changed. It never did. Seeing her would have lifted his spirits, but not seeing her simply left him were he was now.

He stood, realizing the pointlessness of staying here. All he wanted was to go back to his room, and be alone.

"Shinji wait," Misato said before he could take more than a few steps. "Why don't you come to lunch with us? You must be tired of the hospital junk be now."

"That's not a good idea," Ritsuko said. "He's not supposed to leave the ward.

Misato gave her a critical look. "It's okay. He'll be with me."

"That doesn't make it okay. You are the irresponsible one."

Not waiting to for the dark-haired woman find an opening, Ritsuko stepped over to Shinji. Tucking the clipboard bellow her arm, she placed a hand gently on his shoulder. He didn't look up at her. "Come on," she said. "I'll see you to your room."

Shinji did not resist as she led him away, his footsteps quiet in the hall next to the clicking of her heels.

Misato watched them go, biting her lower lip behind them. Then she sighed, and went to look for Asuka, hoping that she was still around.

* * *

The sign read:

Terminal Dogma

Mega-depth facility

Code 1 Authorization required

Junichi Nakayima had already lost track of how many thousands of feet below the surface they were, but he was sure that it was at least a kilometer or more. An enormous door at the end of the long corridor that had brought them here loomed above him.

The agent shifted his weigh uncomfortably for the hundredth time. His arm, which he carried in a sling, hurt, and every time he moved his shoulder screamed in pain. He wasn't sure if he should simply be glad to be alive, or if he should have tried to escape, but one thing was for certain: Gendo Ikari wouldn't have called for him if he didn't have something important to say.

It certainly couldn't go any worse than his last meeting with Kluge. The fact that he still had a job was astounding.

The ride on the elevator had taken more than half an hour, and it was one of those big express elevators, like those used on skyscrapers. Oddly enough, during that time Gendo Ikari, along with his gray-haired Sub-Commander, had remained very quiet. Finally, after another half hour or so of walking around, they had come upon this large corridor lit only by dim lights in the ceiling.

Ikari stopped by the door, adorned with the NERV fig leave, and carefully studied the access panel on its side.

"What is this place?" Nakayima asked, unsure of what to say.

"Heaven's Gate," Ikari said. "Many people have died for just a glimpse of what you are about to see." He typed the entry code and pulled a security card from his jacket pocket.

The doors beeped and opened.

"Oh, my God," was all Nakayima could come up with.

In front of him was a large cavern, so big that most of it was covered in darkness, and in the center of the cavern he saw a huge red cross, and…. something nailed to it, something as big as the Evas. But so much more macabre. It was white, all over white, with no face, only a mask carrying an inverted triangle and seven eyes, nailed by its hands to the cross.

"This is the source of everything since the Second Impact," Ikari said into the dark. "The reason for the existence of NERV. This is the truth that they have been hiding from you."

Then he turned to Nakayima who didn't even notice, because he was staring at the thing.

Ikari continued, "This is the technology they used to trigger Second Impact. We copied it from this. We did not create it, perhaps not even the SEELE did because if they did they would not be looking for this one."

"Why are you showing me this?" Nakayima's face was pale, his eyes wide open. He didn't understand.

"Like I said, many people have died for this. But some knew about it from the beginning. Studied it. Worked with it. And some hoped that it would one day prove the salvation of mankind. Your father was among the latter."

"H-how do you know about my father?" The agent asked, finally tearing his eyes off the thing and focusing them on Ikari.

"I knew him. We were in Antarctica together before it happened. He and Katsuragi had high hopes for their discovery. The rest of us were not so sure. We knew those in power would not let such a chance slip."

"Katsuragi?"

"The sins of the father," Ikari said, "always return to haunt the children. But your father was a good man. A man of convictions. If he knew what those he trusted have done with his life's work …" he paused. "With a name like yours I wonder how you have lasted this long."

"I believe Special Agent Kaji Ryougi got me recommended me to the MOI," Nakayima said, not really knowing why. "I also believe he might have gotten me through the screening process. I don't know what he was thinking. We knew each other from the Army. From Sepang. I think he felt he had to look after me. Kluge came to me after that."

"So, you are here to seek the truth for yourself, like Ryougi did?" Ikari said. "Or are you here to snoop for your masters?"

"Neither," Nakayima smiled weakly. "I was sent here because somebody thought it was a good idea. Kluge said he didn't have a choice. Before he shot me."

"Interesting," Fuyutsuki said from behind.

Nakayima turned around and stared at the creature once again.

"So this is what killed him?" the agent asked himself. Suddenly another sound filled the air. He recognized the sound a gun's safety made when removed. Nakayima turned back to find one of the guards holding a gun to his head.

"You must be very proud of your father," Ikari said.

"Why do you say that?" Nakayima whispered, shaking his head.

"Because if I had thought of him as a lesser man, I would have killed you when you first showed up," Ikari said. "But a man leaves a legacy in his son. And I had enough respect for that legacy to wait and see how his son would do. I was not disappointed."

Nakayima suppressed an ironic smirk. "And yet here you are, pointing a gun at my head."

"Either way you wouldn't last on your own," Ikari said. "Luckily, I do not believe in wasting people as long as they are useful to me. And you, placed within the hierarchy of the Japanese government, are in a unique position to be particularly useful."

"My own boss shot me," Nakayima said, narrowing his eyes. "I don't think I'll be working for the government much longer."

"NERV has recently come into a lot of influence, as you might have heard. We no longer need a government liaison, but the position was a mutually-agreed-upon decision designed to show our cooperation. As such, it cannot be removed if NERV requests that you stay. And if I request you, personally, you will not be going anywhere."

"Do you mean … work for you?" Nakayima hesitated. "And if I refuse?"

"Are you under the impression that we are bargaining?" Ikari said, and pointed to Nakayima's injured shoulder. "The people who did that to you are the same people who killed your father. I do not expect that you would help me out of the kindness of your heart. I will give you something in return."

"I am not after revenge." Nakayima studied him, trying to determine his motives, and found that he was unreadable. His face was perfectly calm, not betraying a hint of emotion that might allow him to gauge his sincerity. Still, he was not the one who'd shot him for doing what he thought was his job.

And it was tempting, even if he wasn't yet willing to admit it.

"Justice, then," Ikari corrected. "For him, and for yourself. You have spent your entire life hating your father, but you don't even know what he achieved. And what you think you do know is wrong. Lies meant to hide the truth. That noble men attempted to save the entire world, and they were destroyed for it."

* * *

To be continued…


	7. Homecoming

Notes: Not much to say here. As always, thanks to Big D for going over this. Also, thanks to Nemo for the suggestions. On to chapter 8.

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended**

**"Are we not like two volumes of one book?" -Marceline Desbordes-Valmore**

**Genocide 0:07 / Homecoming**

* * *

The room was dark save for the intermittent flashing of computer screens and the light from the observation window that made up most of the front wall. Banks of computers filled the space, each station with an operator sitting behind it, and each looking as tired as the next. They had all been here for hours.

Maya had been here longer. Far too long. She was standing by the window, her muscles stiff, her neck aching as she looked down at the three cylindrical entry-plug simulators located in the huge testing chamber opposite the glass. Only one was presently occupied, as it had been every day for most of the last week. And every day Maya had been here, looking, waiting, and hoping.

"Is her sync-ratio still stable?" she asked without taking her lidded eyes from the plug.

"Affirmative," Hyuga answered, as Maya knew he would, typing away on his computer console. " Sync-ratio remains at 56.76 percent, plus or minus 1 percent to adjust for errors."

"At least it's something," Maya said. "Dr. Akagi expected the sync-ratio to drop anyway."

In truth Asuka's sync-ratio had taken a nosedive from her new record during the last battle. Ritsuko had anticipated a drop, but not how far it would drop or when it would recover. With Unit-02 the only operational Eva unit at the time and no feasible replacement available, Asuka's ability to pilot was critical.

"I still can't figure out what the difference in the brain signal pattern is," Hyuga said. "MAGI has identified a 99.999 probability for Asuka, but there is a 0.001 unidentifiable."

Maya chewed her lip. Over the last couple of hours they had begun to pick up signal discrepancies in the brain wave patterns, basically the neurological wireless connection between the Eva's processing core and the pilot. The discrepancy was infinitesimal but not insignificant. Theoretically, it shouldn't even exist. One pilot meant one mind, and that meant one distinct signal fingerprint.

A glance at the nearest monitor confirmed Asuka was indeed alone inside the entry-plug.

It was a sign of exhaustion that it took Maya a moment to realize how stupid that observation was. Of course Asuka was alone. She had been for hours, ever since Maya herself closed the hatch to the plug and evacuated the test chamber.

"Have you ruled out interference?" Maya asked. That was a stupid question too, but she wanted confirmation. So would Ritsuko.

Everyone reports to someone, she thought, and everyone hates doing it. Specially to me.

With the clipboard under her arm, Maya knew she looked more like a student than an authority figure. But looks could be deceiving in a place where the survival of humanity depended more upon experience than age. Despite her delicate features and slender frame, Maya was the most experienced operator around. Hyuga and Aoba were just as good, but neither had the benefit of being Ritsuko Akagi's protégé. Her friends would never begrudge her that. Others were not so accepting.

The operation against the 18th Angel had resulted in the complete loss of Unit-00, and months of work with it. There had been casualties, wounded and dead. Her crew had suffered the worse, and it was understandable that some wanted to blame her. These days every casualty was a friend. The only real success that been bringing Rei Ayanami back alive.

"The test has been performed seven times," Hyuga answered. "Each time with a different filter on the system. It can't be interference."

"So what can it be?" Maya turned to look at him.

"I don't know," Hyuga said, shrugging. His glasses shone white in the light from his monitor like two round oversized eyes. "Some kind of contamination maybe. But if it is, the filters would show something, which they don't. It's almost like some kind of echo on the synchrograph. See?"

Maya came up behind him and glance over his shoulder at the graph on his screen. There were two lines presently displayed, a red one that read 'S. Asuka Langley: recorded' and a green one labeled 'S. Asuka Langley: actual'. Ideally, both of these lines should have overlapped perfectly. They didn't. And although the difference was minimal, it was still enough to be picked up by the MAGI.

Next to the graph, she saw another small screen showing Asuka's face. Her sharp features were relaxed, her eyes closed.

Ever since arriving from Germany the redhead's attitude and the arrogant way she acted towards those around her had made her almost impossible to like. Stripped of that, as she was on the screen, Asuka really looked as young as her age, and far younger than she like to pretend she was.

How old was she anyway, Maya wondered. Fourteen? Fifteen? At that age, Maya's biggest problem had been finding the lead singer of an Idol group strangely attractive. She couldn't imagine what it was like for Asuka, having been through all she had. At times she felt sorry for her—having had her in that hospital room for so long was heartbreaking.

But Asuka was strong and determined. While nobody really understood how she had managed to activate Unit-02 in the middle of battle, Maya was sure those qualities had something to do with it. She was glad. Asuka's actions had saved Shinji Ikari's life, even if, inadvertently, she had risked everyone else.

"Is it something that's likely to hurt the pilot?" Maya asked, not trying to hide the fact that she was more concerned for Asuka than she was for the test's results.

"I wouldn't say so," the operator replied. "The percentage is too small. During a high-stress situation, however, the signal will spike and that can cause troubles with the synchrograph. But it's nothing we can't handle. And I have another theory."

She should have known. "Which is?"

Hyuga pushed his glassed up the bridge of his nose. He always did that when he was getting ready to be smart. "You remember a couple of years back when those physicists ran their new particle accelerator and discovered faster-then-light electrons? Not possible, right? Special relativity and all that. So they ran the test again and got the same result. They brought in different scientists. Same thing. Eventually they figured out the equipment was not properly calibrated so it didn't matter how many times they ran the tests."

"Are you saying it's the equipment?" Maya said.

He nodded. "It's a possibility, sure. Most of this stuff has seen better days."

Maya didn't like that. If Ritsuko agreed with Hyuga she might find herself crawling through ducts again rewiring every terminal in sight, over something that might not have any real significance. MAGI could compensate for equipment error; all they had to do was increase the margin. But Ritsuko was a big fan of operational accuracy, and she got test if there was so much as a burned out light bulb in one of the science labs. Yeah, there was definitely some crawling in her future.

"Any other items on the list?" Hyuga turned his head again.

Maya quickly checked her clipboard.

"No. We are done," she said. "Open a link to the pilot."

Hyuga pressed a button on his console. "You are on."

"Asuka, can you hear me?" Maya said, consciously forcing all trace of emotion from her voice.

"Yeah," the reply from the redhead came back almost instantly. She opened her eyes on the monitor. The LCL and dim lighting cast everything in an orange hue. "How was it?"

"Your sync-ratio has leveled," Maya said. She thought about mentioning the discrepancy, then decided against it. Asuka didn't need to know. "You did good. We are going to de-activate the simulator now. Major Katsuragi said you should go straight home. Something about your homework."

Asuka pouted cutely. "Homework is for losers."

"Major Katsuragi said you'd say that. She also said it was an order."

* * *

Twisted metal and concrete rubble greeted Ritsuko Akagi as she entered the main cage inside Central Dogma. One of the walls had suffered a near complete collapse and the massive door that led to the catapult overhead had come off its hinges and crumbled in the space below. The smaller debris was gathered together in piles; jackhammers worked on the larger pieces, breaking them down for removal. And that was only above the surface.

The devastation reminded Ritsuko Akagi of an urban battlefield, which in a way it was. Three Evangelions had done battle here, brutally, armed with only their bodies and their pilot's will to survive. Such destruction was to expected.

A week after the battle the general feeling in the Geo-Front was that they were lucky Asuka had miraculously activated Unit-02 and joined the fray when she did. They all realized how close it had been. And yet they couldn't have known the truth. Ritsuko did.

She was glad, and even a little proud, that Asuka could ride Unit-02 again. But the narrowly-won victory did not fill her with complacency. That was why she had insisted on keeping up a strenuous test schedule, hoping to catch minor problems before they became major ones. After what happened in China, she had to eliminate any risks.

Glancing around her, the blonde doctor regretted once again having to delegate Unit-02's testing to Maya. The operator was capable, certainly—Ritsuko had trained her herself—and with the decision not to repair Unit-00 a second time she had nothing else do to while Ritsuko, on the other hand, had a lot to deal with. She would have liked to look at Asuka's data first hand, but it wasn't strictly necessary at this stage. Maya could read graphs and plot data points well enough, and MAGI could do the rest.

Ritsuko made her way down the gantry, her heels clicking loudly.

The repairs to this part of the installation alone would cost hundreds of millions of yen. Repairing the outside would cost even more and take longer. The UN had wasted little time approving a new emergency budget as a result of NERV's renewed importance. Protecting the world was an expensive business.

Both Unit-01 and 02 had long since been removed to their holding cages; those had been easy tasks, accomplished with routine equipment. The cages, however, were not designed for the removal of chunks of pulped Evangelion, which was mostly what was left of Unit-A, or parts of their own outlying superstructure. Despite these difficulties, the modular components that made up the cage allowed a great deal of flexibility so it was mostly a matter of thinking and careful planning.

And Ritsuko was very good at those.

There was a small army of techs and machines working in the cage, and even more of them under the LCL's surface, each with a specific task, just as there had been all week. Ritsuko judged that they were only about halfway back to having the cage usable again. And while she had enough trust in the crew to do a good job, she needed to be here for the next part of the operation.

A technician with a pair of large headphone and clad in orange coveralls greeted her as she approached.

"What's the status?" Ritsuko asked.

"Access plate has been released," he reported.

"Good." Ritsuko nodded. "Set the charges in the ejection mechanism and bring up the entry-plug."

The tech relayed the orders into the microphone around his neck and fixed his gaze on the LCL below. Ritsuko leaned over the rail at the edge of the gantry and peered down. What was left of Unit-A lay sunken beneath twenty feet of LCL, making it easier for teams of divers to cut it up into pieces that the cranes could then remove. It was a slow, tedious process, but it was better and safer than having people climbing everywhere with chainsaws.

At first only a few bubbles could be seen, then divers began to emerge and swim away. Finally, the entry-plug bobbed to the surface like a massive cork in an angry orange sea. It was badly dented and covered in scuff marks. Remarkably, it was not crushed.

A crane was lowered from a gantry overhead and the divers attached the plug to it. Ritsuko noticed that both ends of the long cylinder were painted red, with white rings running through them, forming a pair of darkly-ironic bullseyes. Chinese characters were printed on the plug in black. They weren't particularly interesting; just the usual mixture of techno gibberish: Interface Service Capsule 01 Alpha.

Below the characters was a yellow star, crude and obviously hand-painted.

"A dummy-plug," Ritsuko said to the technician. "Remove it to Terminal Dogma for disposal."

"Yes, Ma'am."

It was a lie, of course. Like a lot of other things that none of the people present had clearance to know. Ritsuko preferred it that way. She was not looking forward to opening the plug and finding the week-old carcass of the young girl that the Chinese branch had used for their experiment. But at the time it had been a necessary lie—Shinji would not have fought the way he had if he had known that there was a human life at stake.

So she had lied to him. Actually, in truth, she lied to Misato and Misato lied to Shinji. While not absolving her, it was enough that she didn't believe herself responsible.

Ironically, as it turned out, Shinji was not the one to defeat Unit-A, and Ritsuko was pretty sure that she wouldn't have had to lie to Asuka about something like this. Misato could dote on Shinji all she wanted, but Asuka was the only real natural warrior among the pilots. The girl would do anything to win battles, even if it meant having to kill another human being in the process.

Assuming there had been anybody left to kill, Ritsuko thought. She doubted it.

By the time Unit-02 activated, Unit-A's pilot was most likely dead. The Emerald Tablet had probably destroyed her mind when it took over the Eva, and the damage inflicted by Unit-01 would have sent her into physical shock.

Ritsuko had known that removing the Tablet's safety measures could have severe consequences, but the violence of the results had defied even her expectations. The Chinese really hadn't known what they were dealing with. And to think it was the same code now residing inside ...

The crane stopped overhead with a hiss. Ritsuko turned around as a recovery vehicle was brought in by a separate crew. Most of NERV's vehicles were purpose-built, and this one was no different. It consisted of a long flatbed trailer with a half a dozen wheels on either sides and six semicircular brackets to hold the plug in place. There were cabs at both ends, allowing it to be driven forwards and back without the need to turn.

Under her careful gaze, the crane slowly lowered the plug onto the trailer. The suspension screeched as the added weight pushed down on it and the entire trailer sank noticeably. LCL poured out of two large fissures in the plug, soaking the trailer and the floor beneath it. Several crew members jumped on board and closed the brackets around the plug. They worked quickly and efficiently, as Ritsuko had come to expect. When they were finished they flashed a thumbs-up.

"Entry-plug secured," the technician next to her said.

Ritsuko nodded. She began walking towards the cab. "Clear the maintenance crew for access into Terminal Dogma."

Gripping one of the metal bars that served as handholds, she climbed aboard and opened the passenger door. The driver, a blonde girl in orange work coveralls, looked at her curiously.

"Doctor?"

"Miko, right?" Ritsuko said casually but did not wait for an answer as she settled into the seat and looked through the thick windshield. "Lets go. Gate seven."

Miko started the vehicle with a flick of her wrist on the ignition key. The engine came to life with a roar, like a dormant beast waking from a long hibernation. She dropped the emergency brake, engaged the clutch with her right foot, and put the tractor in gear.

The vehicle rumbled towards one of the loading tunnels, making more noise than Ritsuko thought it should have. She made a note to herself to schedule some maintenance; there had been neither time nor resources to look after a lot of the non-Eva equipment lately, and some deterioration was to be expected. Now that they were regarded as necessary to humanity's survival again, she was confident that the government would be forced to provide replacements if NERV asked.

The narrow entrance opened into a wider space in front of them, a dark, concrete cavern painted only by strips of light placed where the walls met the roof. The tractor's headlights looked like bright circles in the darkness, and the space they illuminated was the only relief in the middle of an impenetrable black void.

Heavy components like entry-plugs were normally loaded directly to and from storage via the elevators in the cages, thus making cargo procedures simpler and less time-consuming. In fact, weapons and battery packs could be loaded directly to an Evangelion once it was properly placed. But this plug was not going into storage. Nor would it ever go back into any Eva unit.

Ritsuko looked at the girl across from her. "You've never been to Terminal Dogma, have you?"

"No, ma'am," Miko said.

She could not have known what she was carrying. Death had stopped making Ritsuko uncomfortable a long time ago. From her mother's suicide to the destruction of the Dummy and Rei's bodies, she saw death as something to be acknowledged because of its omnipresence, but it wasn't something to be upset by.

People died. The world was far too uncaring to feel sorry for those who met that fate. It was the living that deserved pity.

Once the vehicle rumbled into the central hub, the larger overhead lights came on automatically. Six different rail lines extended out of a central ring like a big turnstile, and each rail led to a different gate. There was a long, rectangular cargo platform locked in front of each gate and as the tractor exited the tunnel it rolled smoothly onto one of these platforms, its multitude of tires never touching the hub's floor.

It took a few seconds for the RFID on the trailer to register, and then the hub began turning, placing the vehicle to the gate exactly opposite their assigned one. The center of the turnstile opened up mechanically, allowing them to drive down a ramp, through the hub, and back up to the platform on the opposite side, where another gate led into a tunnel identical to the one they had just left.

"Is it true what they say?" Miko asked suddenly. "I mean, about there being monsters down there."

"It depends of how you define a monster." Ritsuko checked her watch, the hands glowing green. Fifteen minutes and they'd be to the elevator. From there it would be a much longer trip down to Terminal Dogma and the giant incinerator installed in its recesses. Thus were NERV's secrets hidden.

Before that Ritsuko would have to dismiss her driver and cut her way into the mangled entry-plug. Unfortunately, they still needed whatever information the pilot could give them before disposing of her.

"How would you define them?" Miko said.

"I work with some of them," Ritsuko said. "And we kill the rest."

Miko did not respond, but in the scarce lighting Ritsuko noticed that she became tense, clutching the steering wheel more tightly than before. A perfectly reasonable reaction as far as she was concerned.

* * *

Asuka sighed, lifting her head and stiffening her back. She was standing on the edge of the platform, waiting for the train that would take her to school. Bright sunlight streamed into the small terminal building of the Hakone Line Monorail. The day was clear and hot outside, which was nice.

Hikari hadn't needed to try very hard to talk her into going back to school after the Angel attack. Asuka had to give her friend credit for helping her maintain some sense of normalcy in her life when she had felt as though all she could do was stay in bed and fight a fresh wave of tears. That Hikari had been there when she needed her the most meant more to her than she could ever admit.

And she never would, obviously.

There were quite a lot of people on the platform, NERV employees, business men in suits, but most of them were students. Asuka recognized some from her own school, gathered together in a group near the far end. She knew none of them by name, although they probably all knew hers. Everyone at school did.

They should, Asuka thought. I saved their asses, they should be kissing mine.

She still didn't understand what had happened with Unit-02. Once moment she had been curled up in her seat, crying, and the next Unit-02 activated and she was piloting again. It seemed like a dream and yet as happy as it had made her she could not get rid of that strange feeling that had bothered ever since. Something was different—something was missing. Something she had lost.

Needless to say, she had kept the vision of the dead tree and the ocean of LCL to herself. Whatever that had been, a dream, a hallucination or just a figment of her imagination, she wasn't going to share it with anyone but Pen-pen and her pillow. She wasn't crazy. Unit-02 worked. The world made sense again. That was what mattered.

Asuka shifted her weight, reaching up and brushing golden-red bangs out of her eyes.

The boys on the other side were looking at her now and talking among themselves. They wanted her ass alright, Asuka could tell, but not to say thanks. Nothing as chivalrous as that.

She was fighting the urge to yell at them when she spotted a brown-haired boy slowly ascending the escalator on the other side of the platform, looking as gloomy as ever.

Her thin eyebrows drew together into a scowl. Wasn't he supposed to be hurt?

Shinji quickly averted his eyes upon seeing her. He kept his head down as he moved down the platform, away from her.

They're all gawking but he won't even look at me, Asuka thought bitterly. She remembered how she had once found him standing on a similar platform with Rei by his side, talking and smiling in a way he never smiled when he was with her. All Asuka could do was to pretended she didn't notice them and check her voice mail in hopes of hearing a message from Kaji. Now Wonder Girl was in the hospital, and Kaji would never call.

A fortunate side-effect of spending so much time feeling miserable from so many different things was that it was hard to focus on whatever hurt least. So far, she had managed to keep Kaji's memory in the back of her mind. It would catch up to her, but maybe by then she would have stopped caring. In a way, not having to see him again made the loss easier to deal with.

That wasn't the case with Shinji. He didn't want anything to do with her, that much was clear, but she couldn't just pretend that he didn't exist.

Frustrating as it was, Asuka had become resigned to her inability to be rid of whatever it was he made her feel. She wasn't known for giving up, but what else was she supposed to do when she didn't understand any of it? She had no choice, did she? She had to live with herself, the person she hated most in the whole world.

It was Shinji's fault. Moving to Japan had changed her entire world so quickly that there was hardly time to take it all in. A new lifestyle, a new and totally alien culture, new people, new home—these things she had expected. But her feelings had never been an issue before she moved in with Shinji. She'd been perfectly content before she met him.

And because of that it was easy to resent him for everything she felt was wrong with her.

She should hate him too, Asuka thought. He hated her. He had said as much. And she should hate him back. So why didn't she?

"You are an idiot," she muttered, grinding her teeth.

Somehow she wasn't sure if she meant Shinji or herself.

* * *

"Welcome back!"

The greeting made Shinji stop in his tracks barely a step inside the classroom and lift his head. He found Kensuke standing at his desk, his camcorder ready in his hands. Hikari was besides him, smiling, her freckles dark dots on the pale skin of her face. A few others had joined them.

He should have expected something like this—it wasn't the first time he'd gone back to school after being injured—but he was still taken aback.

"Watch it, idiot," Asuka grumbled in annoyance as she came up behind him and slipped by before he could move out of her way. Several girls immediately went to chat her up. Their smiles were as plastic as the neural connectors in Asuka's hair. There was no real friendship there.

Perhaps that was better, Shinji wondered sadly. He had friends—he had torn one of them to pieces and the other was mercifully never selected to pilot Eva. He didn't want to think about what would have happened if he had. Then there was Rei.

Shinji glanced absently over to Rei's window seat and saw it was still very much empty. It probably would be for a while. Misato had made a good faith effort to keep him informed of her conditions, but there was only so much that her words could do. He wanted to see Rei, not just hear about her. And nobody was allowed to see her.

He wasn't aware that he had been standing there like a tree until Hikari came and took him by the hand.

"Are you feeling alright?" she asked, guiding him towards his desk besides Kensuke's. Her voice was soft.

Shinji shook his head. "No, I was just … thinking about something."

"So what happened?" Kensuke asked eagerly. His eyes bristled with curiosity behind his glasses.

"I really don't think this is the time for that," Hikari interrupted.

"Come on," Kensuke insisted. "You said there were no more angels." He turned his camera to Shinji. "A couple of months ago. That's why you didn't have to pilot Eva again. Remember?"

Shinji remembered. He also remembered Misato had broken that promise.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "They miscounted." He pulled out his chair and plopped down on it. A dull pang in his chest reminded him that not everything was healed. He reached up a hand and rubbed the bandages under his white shirt. It hurt.

Hikari had a worried look on her face. But then she always had a worried look on her face.

"Shinji, are you sure you are alright?" she said. "The teacher will understand if you are not feeling well."

What else would he do? Stay at home all day again, just himself and his thoughts?

"I'm fine."

"You nag too much," Kensuke said. He leaned closer to Shinji. Other students crowded around them. "I saw what happened in China on the news. We all did. That thing looked nasty. It was another Eva, wasn't it? Like with Toji. Nothing could stop it. It must have given you a hell of a fight."

As soon as the words left his mouth, a haughty noise rang out from the front on the classroom. Shinji turned his head to look.

"I beat the Angel," Asuka declared proudly, placing a hand against her chest as if to avoid confusion as to who she meant. "Not the all-mighty Shinji Ikari. I did it. Me."

"No way!" Kensuke could not keep the surprise from his voice. "I thought Shinji said you couldn't pilot anymore."

Asuka frowned at him. She wrung loose of the small entourage gathered around her and stalked towards Shinji, twisting her face into a smirk as she approached.

"The idiot was wrong, as usual," she began, raising her voice to steal the whole classroom's attention. "He got thrashed around by the Angel for a while and I had to save him."

Some of the students sniggered. Others seemed amused but tried not to show it. The girls all looked quite pleased, Hikari excluded.

Kensuke turned back to Shinji. "Shame on you, Shinji Ikari," he said jokingly. "Saved by a girl."

Shinji felt his cheeks grown warm with embarrassment.

"That's…not it, " he retorted, whispering weakly and not daring to look directly at Asuka. He didn't know what made him say it—maybe the impulse not to be publicly humiliated, or maybe because deep down a part of him desperately wanted Asuka to know why he had done the things he'd done.

"What was that?" Asuka yelled. "Are you calling me a liar?"

"N-no…" Shinji stuttered, trying to pick the right words for what he wanted to say. "That's not what I meant. I mean, you did beat the Angel but—"

Asuka set her hands on her hips, straightening to her full height. For such a lithe young girl, she could look very imposing when she wanted to. "So tell us, then, what did you mean?"

Shinji fell silent and chewed his lip, his eyes on his desk.

No matter what he said, Asuka would be mad at him. And if he kept quiet, she would still be mad. That was always the choice when facing her. Nothing he said or did would make her happy, so it was better just to do nothing. But as he squirmed inside at the confrontation, the desire to make her understand began to bubble up within him.

She had to know. She had to know the truth. Even if it made her hate him.

"Well, Shinji?" Kensuke prodded.

Shinji stared firmly at the wooden desk in front of him as the memories came back with painful clarity, a living nightmare that he didn't want to recall. The Angel had been descending the open shaft into the cage holding Unit-02. Asuka was in danger, defenseless. She would be killed. He couldn't let that happen. He dove into the darkness.

After that, everything was a blur of furious movement and pain, of anger and fear. Whether he lived or died hadn't mattered to him anymore. Only one thing was important.

Shinji shook his head and looked up, trying to push the thoughts away. He wanted to forget, to put it all away in a dark part of his mind so that the memories would never surface again.

All eyes in the classroom were staring at them-Kensuke's the most prominently-and Shinji would normally have been far too shy to say anything. But, as he realized that Asuka's cold gaze wasn't going anywhere, the feeling that he had to tell her the truth as best he could, no matter the consequences, continued to grow.

And then the words just seemed to pour out of him.

"I … tried to protect you, Asuka…" he whispered in a barely audible voice. "I tried to protect you."

"Really?" Kensuke raised an eyebrow, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

Asuka's blue eyes narrowed. "Yeah right, and what else?" she hissed sarcastically. "You couldn't have cared less. You were just trying to show off like you always do."

Shinji shook his head. There it was, the truth. He had let it out, and he was now caught on it like a fish on a line. But although it was only a matter of time before he triggered a violent outburst from the redhead, he couldn't stop himself. He felt his eyes drawn to hers, despite the pain and fear it caused.

He spoke again, a little more certain. "No. I wasn't. You were in the Eva. It was going towards you. And I couldn't let it hurt you."

"Oh please!" Asuka snorted, shaking her head angrily, sending a fiery storm of red hair in all directions. "You are nothing but a show-off!"

She wouldn't accept it; Shinji was certain of that before he'd said a word. Asuka might accept that he had jumped into that exit in order to reach the Angel first; but, she would never accept that it was in order to save her. Shinji had never understood how she could be so contradictory—that because she cared only for herself, nobody else could care for her.

Well, he did care. And, if she was going to rip his guts out in public for it, then the least he could do was to try to explain that.

He looked up at her and met her eyes with his. "I couldn't just stand by and let it…hurt you."

"I don't need you to protect me!" Asuka screamed, suddenly furious, just as he had expected. "I don't need anyone to protect me! You are just saying that because you're jealous that I destroyed the Angel and not you!"

No, she certainly didn't need anyone to protect her. But that didn't change the fact he had tried.

The stares turned grave but no less enthralled by the drama unfolding right in front of them. Some girls held their hands to their mouths, while others whispered behind Asuka's back. An eerie silence settled over the classroom.

"I … I had to stop it before it got to you," Shinji said, looking down at his clenched hands. He could feel the broken spear again, and he was falling. There was only darkness below. So dark and yet … "It was going to hurt you. I just couldn't stand by and do nothing. I couldn't let it hurt you."

"Liar! You hate me, why would you want to protect me? You care for Wonder Girl more than you care for me!" Asuka made a sweeping motion with her arm towards Rei's empty desk by the window. "Everybody cares for her more than they care for me!"

Shinji opened his mouth reflexively to defend himself, but the redhead cut him short.

"You hate me because I am not your doll, and that's fine with me!" Her terrible anger made her voice quiver, the pitch so high it seemed almost ultrasonic.

Shinji's whole head jerked up as his eyes snapped back to hers.

"I don't hate you!" he yelled before he could think, unable to hold back the tide of long-restrained emotions.

"You do!"

"I tried to protect you because I-" the words stuck in his throat. He swallowed and tried again. "Because I care about you!"

Asuka bit down on whatever reply she wanted to make, eyes growing strangely wide as if in surprise. Her shoulders stiffened, and an expression that Shinji couldn't identify began to form on her pretty face.

There was no angry reply. No cutting words. She just stared at him, but Shinji could no longer find the strength to stare back, and his eyes fell straight to his desk. He was ashamed, afraid, and completely unable to believe his own admission. He did care for her, somehow. Caring for someone meant risking your life for them. It meant putting up with them even though they were a horrible person. It meant … what, exactly?

Had he just made a huge mistake? Had he just embarrassed Asuka and simply stoked the flames of her hatred for him?

A strange silence fell across the classroom. Even Kensuke, who usually had a reply for everything, kept quiet. Asuka should have been in the middle of a screaming fit by now, but she seemed more confused than angry.

As more students stepped into the classroom they noticed the tension and stopped abruptly, causing a pileup in the hallway. A pair of wide brown eyes followed by a flying ponytail popped up as Keiko Nagara made her way through the crowd and began trying to spot the cause of the commotion. Behind her, Miho Ishizawa was already in mid-gossip to her gaggle of friends as they alternated between whispering to each other and craning their heads to see.

Hikari turned her puzzled gaze to Kensuke. There was no answer to the unspoken question, whatever that might be. Then she turned to the redheaded girl.

"Asuka?"

Her voice broke the stillness, and solidified Shinji's feeling that he should not be here. It reminded him that while Asuka had managed to hold her rage in check so far, soon the dam would burst and they would have a repeat of that awful night in Misato's kitchen, in front of the entire class. And he did not want to be there when it happened. His heart could not take it. Not again.

Asuka … there was no telling how she felt. Her emotions, her behavior, and everything else about her made no sense to him, never had and probably never would. His only guide was his experiences with her, and most of those weren't very good. Trying to bridge the gap between them had led to more pain than he could bear. There was only one thing he could do.

Shinji stood up, without looking at anyone, and moved towards the door.

"Shinji, wait." Hikari made to grab his arm, but Shinji slipped away. "You'll miss class."

It was her job, Shinji told himself. He squeezed past Keiko and the rest of the crowd standing in front of the door. Nobody else tried to stop him.

"He cares?" Asuka whispered somewhere behind him. Her voice was odd, heavy.

Shinji heard the Class Representative's reply just before he left.

"Well, of course he cares."

* * *

The silence seemed to last forever, stretching out of the blackness and wrapping around them like a cloak. It was everywhere, utterly pervasive, as if nothing else existed in the entire universe. Then came a voice, hard and dull like stone.

"Man is essentially a single soul," Gendo Ikari said. "But man defines himself as an individual and thus lives isolated from other souls. This isolation forms our identities—who we are, what we want. The AT Field keeps the individuals whole. Without it we cannot exist as separate entities. If the AT Field is removed, man's body ceases to be and the souls become one with each other."

The girl they called Rei Ayanami stood next to him on the platform, somewhere deep inside Terminal Dogma. She had been here before, when she had retrieved the Lance to use against an Angel. And yet, she hadn't. Not her. The other one had been here. A different person. A different her.

Naked, her pale flesh gleamed white. Her face appeared emotionless, blank. The only sign that she was alive and not a statue in human form were her eyes—red, glowing, but alive.

In front of her, beyond the dark concrete edge, she could see the white outline of a huge, fat creature. It was oddly shaped but humanoid, with arms outstretched, its palms nailed to large red cross. Two thick legs dangled from a long, nearly formless body as white as Rei's, and where its face should have been there was a shimmering metal mask with seven eyes. And they were looking at her.

Rei did not know how she knew, but she knew. She could feel the creature's energy, like a heated mist on her bare skin, slowly rising to envelope her. It seemed to want her to approach it, and be one with it. Rei wanted it too. She was tired of being alone.

Then she understood. She looked down at her hands, spreading her fingers. Her voice when she spoke was emotionless. "I have an AT Field?"

Ikari let the question hang in the air, as if expecting that she would find the answer on her own.

"Yes," he finally said. "But your AT Field has begun to collapse. Your sense of individuality will soon be lost. You will die soon. And that is the way it's supposed to be."

"Why?" the albino girl whispered. She looked at him for the first time in what felt like hours.

"Because that is your purpose," Ikari answered. His face was frozen solid, his glasses round white plates shielding his eyes. His hands were in his pockets, but his posture was rigid. He was a man made of granite. "You were created to bring Man together in a final act of complementation. I made you to be the tool for Man's ascent by giving you a soul for safekeeping. It does not belong to you."

I am not myself, Rei thought. Then again, she had never been herself, only the ghost of another. A living corpse. "Whose soul do I carry?"

"You are not meant to know," Ikari said. "We are only the purpose that is given to us. I have confessed your purpose because I see no harm in it. But it is simply yours because I have given it to you. The second Rei made the mistake of thinking that purpose could be changed, and so decided to chose. And she died for her choice."

Rei remembered. "She loved him. She chose to protect him."

"Tools are meant to protect, but not to love."

"That does not change what she felt," Rei said.

"No." Ikari walked closer to her and removed his right hand from his pocket. As he did, Rei saw that he was holding something in his palm. "I do not begrudge her the affection for my son. But she threw away her purpose. It was a mistake."

It did not feel like a mistake. In a life full of loneliness and hurt, the sacrifice she had made felt like the only thing that mattered. She chose to protect who she loved because she could choose, and she could love.

Rei envied that girl.

Ikari came to stand only inches away from her, so close that Rei had to look up in order to see his face. He was much bigger than her. Much taller.

This is my purpose, Rei told herself, but she did not want it.

Slowly, methodically, Ikari turned over his right hand. Rei shifted her gaze to see what he was holding. There was something in his palm, a large bulge grafted to the skin. It looked almost like an human embryo, with a large head and small black dots for eyes. But it was not human. She had seen pictures in anatomy books. The size and shape were wrong. And she could feel it was wrong as well.

"This is Adam," Ikari said. "This is what the Angels were looking for."

Rei focused intently on the thing. She tried to show no emotion, but something inside of her recoiled. "Adam?"

Ikari nodded. "Yes. He is the first. But he is not the only first. There is another. Not the missing rib subjugated to Adam but free in her own right. She is Adam's equal, cast aside and wed by demons." He turned his gaze towards the crucified monster behind them. "She is the genetic source of our biology, and, more importantly, of our soul. The Mother of humanity and the Evangelion. Lilith."

Rei followed him with just her eyes, not turning her head or body. "Is that what I feel inside Unit-00?"

"No. Every Eva has a soul that has been salvaged from a human being. Adam cannot command these. But Lilith can to an extent. Humanity's soul is her creation, much like the Angels are Adam's. However, Lilith's control ends with the will—to be an individual, to exert control over our surroundings, to simply exist. The AT Field. Therefore, for Lilith to bring humanity to her, the AT Field must be removed."

"Remove the AT Field?"

"You do not need to know any more." Ikari reached down with his hand, the one holding the embryo, towards Rei's flat stomach.

The albino girl felt a strange sensation and a soft light flashed before her eyes as a translucent hexagon formed in front of her like a barrier. The edges of the hexagon were a distinct red, arranged in a concentric pattern so that they grew smaller as they approached the center.

Ikari gazed into her eyes. "This is your AT Field."

"My…AT Field?" Rei did not know what was happening. It was awkward, alien, but not painful or uncomfortable.

Ikari slowly inched his hand forward, causing the AT Field to bend towards her. The perfectly geometrical outlines became distorted, warped like a wall of heated glass. Rei stood still, but across this barrier that separated her from everyone else she noticed a strained look on Ikari's face. He hunched over slightly, putting as much force as he could on her AT Field.

Rei still did not understand. How could she manifest an AT Field? Only Angels and Evas were supposed to do so. Not humans. But then, she was not really human, was she?

Doubt flared up inside of her, as it always did when she considered the nature of her existence. She flinched.

The light was gone. The AT Field vanished. Ikari came forward, the embryo outstretched in his hand reaching for her. Rei fought the urge to step back.

"No," she said weakly, raising a hand between the advancing abomination and her pale flesh. "Stop."

It was the first time that she had refused him, and she did not know what made her think that he would take heed. Somehow, a part of her wanted to believe that he saw her as more than just an object. If his son could, why not him?

He kept coming. Closer.

Rei recoiled in disgust, but even as she did she realized the futility of her resistance. He was going to do with her as he wanted, and she could not stop him. He grabbed her wrist forcefully with his other hand, moving it out of the way as he pressed the embryo flat against her lower abdomen. It was warm.

"Stop."

Ikari pushed in, and the embryo seemed to sink into her through her skin. Rei felt her muscles clench, but her flesh gave in as though it were made out of jelly. There was no pain, only a strange awareness that what he was doing was wrong because it was happening against her will. In a moment Ikari's hand was in her womb, or where her womb should have been.

She closed her eyes and there was only darkness... and the feeling of the thing wriggling inside her. A scream rose in her throat.

Her eyes shot open, and the darkness was replaced by a flat gray ceiling.

The pain that raked her body was so overwhelming that all she could do was turn on her side and wretch. Almost nothing came out, but the taste in her mouth was bitter. She heaved again.

When the pain reseeded and the heaving finally stopped, Rei lifted her head and looked around. She realized that she was lying naked on her own bed, in her apartment. The sheets under her were warm and soaked with sweat. A puddle of her vomit had formed on her pillow where she had wretched, and it started to smell.

Rolling onto her back, Rei stared blankly at the ceiling.

Several things were immediately apparent. First, she had obviously survived her fight with the Angel, though she did not remember how. Second, she must have been released from the hospital. She did not remember that either. There was only the image of Gendo Ikari standing with her, penetrating her.

"Was it a dream?" Rei whispered to herself as she sat up, kicking the sheets away to reveal her completely nude body.

She reached down with a hand and pressed it against the skin where Ikari had placed the embryo. Her hands were cold, but other than that there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Another moment passed as her body adjusted to being awake. She rubbed a hand gingerly against her right temple. No pain assaulted her and she found this strange. There had been a lot of pain in her head before.

She climbed cumbersomely from the bed, struggling with her balance as she got to her feet. Her body was heavy, sluggish. The only light came from the window behind her, slipping fuzzily through the curtains which she could not recall drawing shut. The floor was cold—it always was. She looked at the nightstand, where Gendo Ikari's broken eyeglasses lay next to a cup of water, then at the soiled pillow. She stripped the cover and tossed into the nearby garbage can.

Shuffling her feet, Rei made her way into the bathroom. It was a tiny, unkempt space; towels and old garments lay discarded everywhere. Water still pooled in the tub that she had neglected to empty. The shower curtain was ripped out of its place and crumpled in a corner. The porcelain, once a shiny white, was covered in streaks of yellow, and the floor tiles were dirty.

She rinsed the bitter from her mouth with water from the faucet and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink. Her eyes were half-shut and dull, her short hair a disheveled mop, her expression even more slack than usual.

To her weary mind it seemed a rather odd way for a person to look. As a general rule of human behavior, body language gave clues to someone's mood. And the face, being the most characteristic trait of a person, gave many of those clues. But Rei thought it strange that her face said nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She had no opinion on how she ought to feel about that.

Her nudity was also clearly reflected back at her. Although she seldom habit of going to bed naked, Rei had such disregard for modesty that it wasn't unusual. If she was particularly tired or freshly showered, she simply would not bother dressing. Propriety dictated her attire in public; in her own private space she was free to not care.

She was aware of it, of course, but it was not the sort of thing to pay attention to. It was a natural state, unencumbered by the pretense of clothing that defined social classes. But some, like the Second Child, seemed to openly abhor it. Rei didn't understand—did she wear a swimsuit every time she stepped into the shower?

Again Rei looked down at her stomach, and again she failed to find any indication that her nightmare had been anything but that. Her experience with dreams was limited. Maybe she would have to find a book about it.

It was inside me, she thought. He put it inside me.

The face that stared back at her had no answers. On a whim, Rei spread her legs and let her hand wander down to her labia.

He put it inside me, she thought again. This time she felt dirty.

The face in the mirror could hardly have cared less. Rei decided that for now it was best to follow its example.

After a quick stint sitting on the toilet, she stepped into the shower. The apartment had grown darker by the time she left the bathroom. The sun was going down, casting a red hue and shadows as black as ink.

Dripping wet, a towel draped around her shoulders, Rei padded into the small kitchen. The space was crowded with plastic bags and smelled of old food, and the scuffed tiles felt rough under her bare feet. She opened the refrigerator and looked for food. Ramen noodles would do. She peeled back the lid on one of the plastic cups and filled it with water, then found a pair of clean chopsticks while the cup heated in the microwave.

Hot food was a superfluous luxury, but one she enjoyed.

Rei returned to her bed with the ramen and sat at the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked and sank underneath her buttocks. The cloth was old and worn but soft. To her that made it comfortable. Her whole body seemed to slump forward as she dipped the chopsticks into the cup and brought a thin string of noodles to her lips. The taste of broth filled her mouth, and she slurped greedily, not realizing how hungry she had been.

And as she ate the paltry supper her gaze wandered to the glasses sitting on the nightstand. His glasses. For no particular reason that she could think of, Rei tossed them in the garbage too.

* * *

"I really don't know, Asuka," Misato's voice was full of hesitation. "I mean, this is a very serious issue."

"I know it is," Asuka said, bringing her voice down so that only Misato on the other side of the line could hear her. She turned around, cuddling her cell phone closer to her ear and looking around. The brightly-lit bathroom was as empty as it had been when she came in to make her call, but she felt like she had a large group of people spying in on her, listening to her every word.

"I would have to ask him."

She knew Misato would say that.

Asuka bit her lip, and again she had doubts about this whole thing. Calling Misato had been a mistake. The woman had it in for her. She might even hate her. There was no reason she'd help.

"Don't…do that," Asuka said after a long moment. "I don't want him to know."

"I can't make a decision like this without letting him know. Not after what happened."

I'm such an idiot, Asuka thought, heaving a sigh so heavy it made her slightly dizzy. Or maybe it was something else making her dizzy. She couldn't tell. Her head was starting to throb. It was bad enough she'd had to face Shinji in the morning, but now she had to deal with her obnoxious guardian.

"I don't care, just keep it to yourself," Asuka insisted. "This is important."

Another awkward pause followed, then Misato said, "Asuka, I really think I should ask him."

Asuka didn't reply to that. Yeah, she had definitely made a mistake. She'd let her emotions get the better of her. Misato had a vested interest in protecting Shinji at all costs. Even from Asuka. She really shouldn't have expected that things would be any different.

"Asuka?"

She shook her head, defeated. "Forget it. Forget we ever had this conversation. Good bye." She reached for the 'end call' button.

"Wait!" Misato yelled out before she could hang up. Asuka heard her sigh. "I don't understand you. After what happened … and now this? Why?"

Asuka couldn't even explain it to her own satisfaction, let alone explain it to Misato. And there was no way she could try without sounding ridiculous. "I can't tell you. I have my reasons. That's gonna have to be good enough."

"Will it make you happy?" the Major asked in return.

Asuka almost snorted despite herself, but she managed a convincing, "Yes."

"Okay," Misato said finally. "I'll think about it. That's the best I can do right now. I don't think you can blame me given how things turned out last time. Well, maybe you can but you are smart enough to also understand why I can't just let you do this. And you have to take it seriously and be sure it is what you want for the right reasons."

If not for her kind tone, Asuka would have thought she was being patronizing. "I don't need a sermon."

"And I don't mean to give you one, but you are asking for a lot. I want things to work out for you—you have no idea how much. But what about Shinji? I can't just disregard what he might want. And it's not because I'm playing favorites either."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Asuka wasn't satisfied, not at all, but she knew this was the most she was likely to get out of Misato. "Don't mention this to anyone, Misato. I'll never forgive you."

"I won't. I promise. Do you need anything else?"

Grown-up promises weren't worth anything, Asuka had already learned that at her young age, but there was no sense in arguing with Misato as long as she thought the woman was being sincere. And she certainly sounded that way. "No. That's it."

"All right then. I'll be seeing you."

"Bye," Asuka said trying not to sound sarcastic and pressed the end button on the cell phone's keypad. She moved the plastic device away from her ear and stared at the screen for a moment, reaching up to brush stray locks of hair out of her eyes with her other hand.

So why was she doing this, anyway? Misato's line of questioning was far more direct than she cared to admit. She had obviously picked up on something. But was Asuka really that desperate? Was she really that lonely?

She decided not to answer that. Tossing the phone in her book bag, she headed out of the bathroom and down the hall.

"Hey, Asuka, wait up!"

The German redhead jumped at the familiar voice, then jerked her head towards the pigtailed girl walking hurriedly behind her. Hikari hated to run—it was unseemly, she had always said. And it was also unnecessary; Asuka could tell when she was in a hurry just from the expression on her face.

"Oh, hey, Hikari," she said and smiled the same exaggeratedly insincere grin she gave whenever she was interrupted but still wanted to be pleasant.

"I thought we were going home together," Hikari said, coming to a stop next to her friend. She was panting for breath and clutching the front of her shirt.

"You forgot to tell me you had clean-up duty today," Asuka said, frowning. In truth she couldn't remember if Hikari had told her or not, but it was as good an excuse as any she could think of. "You know how much I hate it."

"Sorry," Hikari said, shaking her head. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting."

Asuka waved her hand dismissively. "You didn't. I had … something else to do. It's not a big deal."

Hikari made a strange face.

"What?" Asuka was puzzled.

"It's just that you are never that accepting," Hikari said, blushing slightly. "Usually you just … you know."

Asuka did, but if Hikari had a problem with her then she wanted to hear her say it. She wasn't about to make things easier on her. Why should she? "No, what?"

"Well, you know, you—"

"Act like a bitch?"

Hikari, to her credit, seemed to decide not to take the bait. Of all people she was the most attuned to Asuka's manner. She could tell when she was being set up to give an answer to a question she would normally avoid. So she remained politely silent, if not a little uncomfortable.

Asuka got the hint. "Maybe I'm just in a good mood." She made a show of tossing her hair over her shoulder as she turned around. "Come on."

Hikari fell in step behind her, and eventually beside her. Asuka was aware she was still looking at her in a slightly weird way.

Neither of them said anything as they descended the school's main entrance stairway and began walking down the sidewalk towards the train station. The western sky was a wash of crimsons and oranges, like bloody water, lighting the streets with red and casting deep shadows. There were a lot of vehicles driving around, and even more people walking: students, workers, businessmen, all with somewhere to go.

The train station was only a few blocks away from the school; it barely took them ten minutes to get there. It would take a lot longer to get to Hikari's house, however, since they had to stop and change trains.

Asuka was the first one to the platform, while Hikari had again dropped back and trailed behind her. The redhead was in no rush, so she waited, wondering why she seemed more thoughtful than normal.

They scanned their student IDs on the machine set beside the gate and walked through as it issued a loud beep. Their train was already there waiting, a thick stream of people boarding as it was very nearly rush hour. And soon it would be much busier.

"Come on!" Asuka took off before hearing a reply, red hair flowing behind her.

"Asuka!" Hikari called after her in complaint, but she was left with no choice. The two girls rushed across the platform, dodging the people there, receiving a few indignant glances in the process. They only just managed to squeeze past the sliding doors.

Hikari was panting again as she followed Asuka down the center aisle. The German girl snickered. Despite the mandatory PE in the curriculum, some of the girls always found a way out of it—Hikari included. Running around and being all sweaty was not the sort of thing that most demure Japanese females enjoyed.

Asuka was different. She loved it, not the least because physical exertion helped clear her oft-troubled mind.

The train was even more crowded with people than was evident from the outside, mostly students from other schools, some from their own, salarymen, and other assorted commuters who had really bad timing. Asuka had never been able to comprehend what could make those people ride the train unless they absolutely had to, and especially not during rush hour. In Germany, everyone drove a car.

And with that thought came a fond memory of the one time Kaji had tried to teach her to drive a 5-speed stick. There had been a lot less going on in those days. Her happiness had seemed boundless.

Now she could only be cynical about the mere thought of happiness, and the more she thought about it the more miserable she felt.

Hikari eventually found a single seat towards the back. She offered it to Asuka, but the redhead refused. She was not the one breathing so heavily she seemed like she was about to pass out. Hikari chose to accept the sudden bout of politeness and took the seat while Asuka stood in front of her, grabbing one of the loop handles that dangled from a rail in the ceiling for support.

Almost immediately a high-pitched electronic tone sounded from the doors and the train hummed into life.

Asuka allowed her eyes to wander through the train car before settling on the window behind Hikari. The station swiftly passed by and the entire car plunged into orange light as it pulled into the open. The western sky was flush in a heavy orange stain, though dithered and not quite as golden as her hair.

Hair like the sunset—there was a lame pickup line if she ever heard one. Nobody would ever say something like that to her. Especially not Shinji. He couldn't talk to a girl unless it was to tell her he hated her.

Or that he cared about her.

She knew it was stupid feeling, as childish as finding yourself trapped in the blind hope that someone would fulfill your wishes out of the kindness of their heart. Grown-ups didn't worry about whether their wishes came true. Reality had to be accepted and taken in stride and dealt with. There was no place in it for what you wished would happen instead of what actually was. Asuka had found out the hard way that these things always ended in disappointment, and she was tired of being disappointed.

But she was always wishing, always dreaming, waiting for things to land in her lap. How could she, Asuka Langley Soryu, not go and get whatever she wanted?

The answer was easy, and she had known it for a while—because she was afraid. Just like she had been as she watched while the Angel beat Shinji to a pulp right in front of her.

That didn't have to mean that she was helpless. Successfully activating Unit-02 was proof that fear could be overcome, and when she had watched the video of Shinji diving into that dark tunnel after the Angel she realized immediately the courage it must have taken. And now she knew he had done it solely for her.

Whatever his intentions were, whatever this declaration was supposed to do, she could not deny it that tugged at something very deep and very soft inside of her; that his words mattered to her where before she would have ignored him.

And if the human doormat could stop being afraid just for the moment it took to make the jump into darkness, so could she.

Would that make her happy?

"Hikari," Asuka began, purposely fixing her eyes in the distance. "Can I tell you something?"

"You can tell me anything, Asuka," Hikari said, and Asuka could feel her friend's gaze on her like a spotlight.

Asuka turned her head and looked at her. Hikari's soft features appeared sharper than usual as the sunlight that filtered through the train windows gave her, and everything else in the car, a crimson hue. Suddenly everything seemed to stand perfectly still.

Will it make you happy, Misato had asked her. And the answer she gave had been a lie. But it wasn't a lie anymore.

"Hikari, I want to go home."

* * *

Misato slumped down on the nearest chair she could find, which happened to be right across from Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's desk. The fake-blonde doctor raised her eyes from the mountain of paperwork she was currently examining and looked at the Major.

"Yes?" Ritsuko sounded harassed.

"Whatcha doing?"

The vein on the side of Ritsuko's forehead was so large it could have popped. "Work," she managed to answer.

Misato leaned forward and made a face. "You are always working."

"That's why they call it work," Ritsuko said, looking back at her paperwork. "What about you? How was the test?"

"Fifty six point something." Misato answered, then drew her eyebrows together. "What, you didn't read the report?"

"It's in my stack." Ritsuko pointed to one of the paper piles. "Is it stable?"

"Yes," Misato said, looking at the pile. She moved her hand over it and made a show of straightening it out. "Looks like you could add maybe a couple more folders up there."

Ritsuko sighed. "I meant—"

"I know what you meant," Misato cut her off. She crossed her legs and leaned on one of the chair's padded leather armrests. "God, Ritsuko, you have absolutely no sense of humor, do you? Anyway, yeah, it's stable. Maya said there was a signal discrepancy but nothing serious."

Ritsuko thought about that for a minute before returning the files spread out in front of her. "Asuka should be pleased. I was afraid her sync-ratio would continue to deteriorate as time went by."

And she would end up back in a hospital bed, Misato thought. Alone, forgotten.

"Asuka is a fighter," she said. "I think we can all agree on that. How's the clean-up going?"

"Slowly." This time Ritsuko did not even look at her. "It's amazing how much damage five minutes of battle can do. At this rate it will take weeks to clear it up. We have some more equipment coming in, but we are still short on staff. And, of course, we can't just throw it all out the window. Most of the debris is highly sensitive. Proper disposal procedures have to be followed."

"I don't like procedures."

Ritsuko smiled. "I know."

The smile made Misato feel a little better. Her work might be all that mattered to Ritsuko, but that didn't change the fact that she was one of the very few people Misato could call a friend. Even if she disagreed with her, she could at least be honest. Otherwise, she wouldn't have come. "Ri-chan?"

"Yes?" At first Ritsuko did not lift her gaze, but when Misato hesitated she realized something else was going on. Her green eyes met Misato with cool interest. "Look, I'm busy. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's nowhere near as important as—"

"Asuka just asked to move back in," Misato said quickly, as if that would ease the guilt she felt in breaking the promise to keep Asuka's request a secret. And Ritsuko had to be informed of the pilots' whereabouts at all times anyway so it wasn't like she would be able to hide it from her. "I told her that if it made her happy, then I'd think about it," she added.

Ritsuko pushed back on her chair, her expression growing heavy with weariness. She sighed and raised a hand to rub the bridge of her nose. "And why would you do that?"

"Because she asked," Misato said sharply. "I couldn't say no outright."

"You could have," Ritsuko told her.

"I wasn't going to."

The call had been as much of a surprise as the serious tone Asuka had used. People had a habit of taking the haughty redhead a face value, seeing only what was right there on surface and never bother to dig deeper. That was what Asuka wanted. She had spent her whole life trying to push people away, with violence and with insults. But sometimes how Asuka said something mattered a lot more than what she said.

And Misato knew that this was important to her. She had heard it in the young girl's voice, and the fact that she had called to ask and made her promise to keep the secret was more proof than she needed.

Ritsuko was shaking her head. "You are not seriously thinking about this."

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't," Misato admitted.

"You were wrong before," Ritsuko said, pressing her lips together. "And how did that end? You just don't get it. They will never get along, no matter how much you want them to. They are too much alike, and that means they only person they clash with more than themselves is the other. I don't suppose you even thought to consider how this might affect their ability to pilot the Evas."

"Is that all you care about?" Misato retorted. "I'm trying to do what's best for Asuka and all you can think about is piloting Eva."

"It's a matter of survival."

"So? When Asuka's happy, her Eva works. Cause and effect. I would have thought someone as smart as you could figure that out."

"Or maybe it's the other way around." Ritsuko's eyes flicked downward, and she moved her hand across the desk, brushing aside a file and grabbing another one from the stack. "Playing mother didn't get either of them anywhere before."

It hurt to have her failure so blatantly exposed. And she had failed. After months in the hospital, she sincerely believed that having familiar people around her was best for Asuka, living in a familiar place, doing familiar things. It didn't turn out the way she hoped, and she regretted the naiveté that led her to underestimate the hostility in the girl's relationship with Shinji.

This time, however, it was Asuka who asked to move back. Misato had to believe that she realized the implications of such a request.

"You are asking for trouble," Ritsuko said after a moment. "I doubt you even understand what you are getting into."

"I guess I don't," Misato said, leaning back as a sign that she was removing herself from open confrontation. She knew that there was little she could say to make Ritsuko change her mind about Asuka. Fortunately, she was here for advice, not permission. "But at least my attitude doesn't need fixing, unlike yours."

"What attitude would that be, Misato?" Ritsuko asked, her voice sounding disinterested. Her attention had gone back to her files now, eyes moving back and forth on printed text.

"The cold, inhuman, heartless doctor attitude."

"And how do you propose fixing it?"

"Getting you a man, I suppose," Misato said, rather pleased with the come-back.

Ritsuko shook her head, and as she went back to examining her papers, her expression became deadly serious. "Oh, by the way, I've got something for you from the US Department of Foreign Affairs."

Misato raised an eyebrow in surprise, erasing her smile. "What? What for?"

"Well, it was actually for the Commander. He's delegated the responsibility to you. Here." Ritsuko reached through her papers and produced a folder embossed with the logo of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the United States. "I wasn't planning on broaching this until the evening meeting but since you are here I might as well. It's important."

Her curiosity piqued, Misato took the folder and opened it quickly, wondering what the content could be. She pulled out a document from it brandishing the seal of the United States, an eagle clutching arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. It was in English—Americans never wrote anything official in any other language. She read it, and as she did, her eyes grew wide with shock.

"This…can't be right." She read it again, then looked at Ritsuko. "Can it?"

"Of course it can," Ritsuko said, ignoring her reaction.

There was a lump in Misato's throat. "When are they going to—"

"They already did. Those movement orders were issued well after it left port. It's almost like they didn't want to give us the chance to refuse, not that we would have. At any rate, it's not going back. We either take delivery or they will destroy it. I think you can safely guess which option the Commander agreed to. ETA is roughly 36 hours."

Misato had a bad feeling about this. She had been there for Unit-03's activation—she had barely survived it. It was a nightmare she didn't care to repeat. "What does it have to do with me?"

"The Americans don't seem to trust the Japanese government any more than they do the UN. They want someone from NERV to take the delivery in person," Ritsuko explained. "I'm afraid I'm much too busy with the clean-up here. So it was decided that you just earned a trip to New Yokozuka."

"You decided, but nobody thought to tell me."

Ritsuko dismissed her with a shrug. "Like I said, you were supposed to be informed in the evening."

"I can't go. Not now." Misato shook her head. "I'm in the middle of this thing with Asuka. I can't just leave."

"You have to go," Ritsuko said. "As the third highest-ranking officer and Operations Director it's your job to take care of this sort of thing. I understand your concern from a logistics standpoint, but we will not be rebuilding Unit-00. There's no longer any need for it, and we do not have the time or resources to rebuild it from scratch. And this just happened to land on our laps."

Misato almost snorted. "Oh, yeah, I'm sure it just happened to land on our laps. I'm not stupid."

"Given the current situation, I'm sure you see why this is more important than whatever sense of obligation you feel towards Asuka."

"I can't just leave her hanging," Misato said. "You know how she is."

"You told her you would think about it." Ritsuko wrote something down on the paper she was reading. "Then think about it for a few days, while you are away."

Misato jumped to her feet. "Dammit, would you at least pretend you care about her."

"I do," Ritsuko assured her, but apparently not enough to look up. "Her ability to pilot Unit-02 is of paramount importance."

Typical, Misato thought. She glared at the document with the American emblem, wishing she could set the thing on fire and forget about it.

"What is the point of even bringing it here?" she hissed quietly, folding her arms in front of her. "We have no pilot for it."

"We have people taking care of that," Ritsuko said, as calm as if she were talking about the weather. "You are right, of course," she added when she noticed Misato's puzzlement. "I suppose there is no sense lying to you."

"Because it's not like you never lied before."

Ritsuko nodded. "Have it your way. The truth is that it has been arranged for some weeks now. Up until very recently we weren't sure Asuka would ever be able to pilot Unit-02 again. She was expendable."

Misato wanted to slap her. "You were planning on replacing her after all."

"And we have a matching core too."

Misato said nothing to that. The scope of her authority failed to extend that far, and she had no illusion that even if it did she would be listened to; shipping out an Evangelion, and selecting a core and a pilot were certainly not done overnight. Ritsuko did not seem concerned at her reluctance. She could file a protest, as it was her right to do, but it would hardly make a difference.

Realizing her impotence, Misato returned to her reason for coming here in the first place. "This isn't settled." She slipped the documents back in the folder and closed it. "About Asuka, if she really wants to come back then it means she understands that what happened between them was wrong. She isn't a child. She knows how to behave."

"I doubt we are talking about the same person." Ritsuko pressed her lips together, her aggravation clear. "An equipment train will be dispatched tomorrow morning for Yokozuka. Feel free to use it."

Misato looked at her for a long moment. Then said, "Well, I guess this conversation has reached its logical and predictable conclusion." She made to leave. "Now if you don't mind, I need to meet a man about a computer."

But Ritsuko apparently did mind. "You shouldn't be doing that," she said. "It doesn't matter what you think you want to find, you will not like it."

Misato did her best impression of a rock. "I don't know what you are talking about."

It was still a blatant lie. And Ritsuko knew it.

"Who do you think set up all the security that you and your conspirator are trying to break through?" Her gaze shifted down. "Who do think gave Kaji a key that would allow him to log in without being tracked or traced?"

The game was up then, Misato thought grimly but strangely unsurprised. The only question left was why Section 2 had never come to break down her door and take her into custody, as they were surely to do if …

"You haven't told anyone, have you?"

Ritsuko did not move, did not shake her head, did not make any gesture whatsoever. She just said, "No."

Misato stared openly at her, an empty feeling in her chest. "Why?"

"Maybe a part of me thinks it's time you knew the truth, that you have earned it. That would be the idealistic part—we don't talk much. Or maybe I just want to screw with the people who have caused me so much grief. I hope that you do remember that while you were sneaking around, I spent three months in isolation. In the dark. Alone. I do remember. And Akagi women do not let go of grudges."

Misato was honestly surprised by that. Ritsuko was right. And she could very well imagine the hell she must have gone through in those three months. It made her feel awful that she had never shown any concern for her.

"Ri-chan, I'm sor—"

"Don't be," Ritsuko interrupted, still not betraying any hint of emotion. "It helped me rid myself of certain delusions I previously had. I finally realized the truth. And that is, perhaps, another reason why I never turned you in. Except, of course, our truths are different. My truth is selfish. Yours … you just want to know."

"You know, you could always just tell me," Misato ventured with a smile.

Finally, after a long silence, Ritsuko shook her head. "Find your answers on your own, and if you don't like them then you have no one else to blame."

* * *

"Major Katsuragi will go to meet the Americans," Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki said upon entering Gendo Ikari's office. The echo of his steps filled the cavernous space as we walked. "It has been confirmed by Section 2," he continued. "The shipment schedule has been drafted up."

"I was certain she would," Ikari said. He was standing at the large window along the far wall, looking outside at the dimly-lit landscape. He was not as tall as Fuyutsuki, but he was broader and his uniformed silhouette cut an impressive black figure. "I assume she will file a protest."

"No doubt." Fuyutsuki stopped behind Ikari and clasped his hands at the small of his back. "Exclusively on operational grounds, I would imagine. Her argument doesn't hold much weight."

Even if she is the Chief of Operations, Fuyutsuki added silently.

"I am amazed that she has come this far," Ikari confessed. "With the kinds of things she must have found while snooping around, I would think she might have tried something by now."

They had discussed Major Katsuragi's loyalties before. Fuyutsuki was used to having doubts about her, but it didn't surprise him that the woman would do as she was told. People chose to follow because it was easier, and Katsuragi had made easy into a habit.

"It is not in her character to be reckless," Fuyutsuki said. "She had a very interesting talk with Dr. Akagi a few weeks ago. I believe she mentioned something about loyalty."

Ikari nodded. "Loyalty never dies."

"Indeed."

Fuyutsuki could very well read between the lines: so long as Katsuragi did not pose a threat and did what she was told she simply was not worth being concerned over.

"What about the other matter?" Ikari inquired. He turned away from the window, just enough for Fuyutsuki to see that his right hand was heavily bandaged.

The Sub-Commander restrained his curiosity. "The Russians took care of it already," he answered. "They did a pretty good job, considering that Marduk had to be completely ignored. Given the information we provided, we can expect the results to be useful. And they were quite thorough."

"Marduk has been contaminated. We can not risk another incident," Ikari replied. "They must have had a potential candidate selected already."

"One of ours," Fuyutsuki replied. "The Second Department of the Russian First Directorate provided a single name for which the core can be adapted within ten hours of arrival." He added, "I didn't think it would be possible, but I am somewhat concerned as to how they intended to pull this off had they been able to build an Eva unit on their own."

"Yes, that they could target one of ours would be a matter for some concern." Ikari walked to his desk. "You said it was the First Directorate?"

Fuyutsuki nodded. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian First Directorate had been known by a more infamous name, one which had become synonymous with repression and brutality: KGB

"I thought it was strange too," he said. "It seems that for them the matter is more important than we thought."

"If that's the case then the candidate is probably useful," Ikari said, sitting at his chair with a groan and grabbing his hand. "I won't demand much more from them. All I need is something to put into the American Evangelion."

"What about Unit-02?" Fuyutsuki added.

"It works," Ikari said. "There is no need to worry about it at the moment."

Correct he might have been, but NERV seemed to move from one crisis to the next far too often for Fuyutsuki's liking. "I am not too confident in having to depend upon such a flimsy barrier."

Ikari considered that. "It does not need to last forever, just long enough," he said. "Until we can use Rei."

"When are you planning to tell her?" Fuyutsuki said, again focusing on Ikari's bandaged hand.

"I believe that she knows already. Maybe not consciously, but she knows. At any rate, we shall use this unexpected move by the Americans as an opportunity. I cannot say that their decision is unjustified. New Eva units do not have a stellar safety record, and certainly not American-built ones. I am much more intrigued by why they would send it to us instead of SEELE, as they were supposed to."

Fuyutsuki almost grinned. "Better the devil you know than the one you don't."

Ikari agreed. He didn't say it, but Fuyutsuki could tell.

* * *

The look on Asuka's face kept coming back, though perhaps only because he couldn't recall ever seeing that expression on her before. Shinji wanted to call her, talk to her, and find out what it meant. But doing so would put him in her temper's line of fire. That he didn't want.

Why did she always have to act like that? Why did it have to be so hard?

He sat at the low table in the living room, notebooks and a math book open in front of him. Out of the fifteen or so problems assigned, he'd barely managed to scratch his way through one, and he was certain he'd missed something on it. It was hard to think about math when his mind was somewhere else.

Asuka had been right about the battle. The Angel had him beaten. He was in too much pain, exhausted and teetering at the edge of consciousness. But Asuka had saved him. Shinji vaguely remembered seeing Unit-02 wrap its arm around the Angel's neck. He remembered it pulling the monster away from him, and then nothing. The light had faded as his consciousness had slipped away.

"Get away from him! I won't let you hurt him anymore!" a shrill, angry voice had yelled inside his head. Asuka probably didn't know that she was still broadcasting in the open and that he could hear her, just as he had heard Misato pleading with her to help him.

Shinji had spent days wondering what the she meant. There was no doubt in his mind that she was concerned about him, but if that was true then she would have come to see him in the hospital. She would have said something.

Like what? Asuka wasn't the type to talk openly about her feelings, least of all to him. She never had and probably never would. And why would she go see him in the hospital when he hadn't done the same for her? Not while she was awake, anyway.

She wouldn't, of course. Whatever he thought he heard in her voice was just his battered mind trying desperately to stave off the black oblivion of unconsciousness. That was the only logical explanation. Even today at school, she had done nothing but accuse him of being a liar and yell at him.

Shinji closed his eyes, and the figure of Asuka popped into his mind. It was an image of the second he told her that he cared about her. The redhead had been surprised, among other things. He could tell that she had not expected him to say that. Just as he had not expected her reaction. Something had been struck inside her. He couldn't explain it, but he saw it on her face.

He was too upset to dwell on it at the time. Now he wished that he could burn the image into his brain so that he would never forget it.

Opening his eyes, he stared again at the math problem. The kanji seemed to jumble all together until they resembled a completely different language. The numbers seemed random and unrelated. Asuka was good at math; he was lousy at it. Had she been home, she would have started to make fun of him by now for his inability to solve what she would call basic problems. She wouldn't offer to help him; it would take away from her fun.

He pressed his lips, thinking, his pencil poised over the paper just in case he caught a brainwave.

All he caught, however, was the sound of the front door opening.

"I'm home," Misato's voice ran out across the apartment. "Shinji?"

"In the living room," he said.

Misato moved through the kitchen and stepped into the living room. Her red jacket was draped over her right shoulder and a tired look clung on her face. "Hey, Shinji. How was school?"

He shrugged and gave the answer he always gave. "Fine."

Misato didn't seem satisfied. Her eyebrows closed to together in something akin to worry. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess," Shinji said, feeling embarrassed she would ask and turning his gaze down towards the floor. He missed the pleased smiled that curled the corners of her lips.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," she said. "Ritsuko wants you back for a checkup during the weekend."

Shinji nodded. Misato did too, her smile widening a little. Her concern felt truly genuine, which wasn't always the case with most of the people in his life, and that just gave him a renewed fondness for her. She might not be his mother, but these kinds of gestures had made him come to think of her as the next best thing.

And after he had been so hurtful towards her …

"Are you going back to work?" he asked politely. "Would you like me to make something for dinner?"

"No, don't worry about it. I need to go pack anyway." She flicked a thumb behind her, to her bedroom.

Shinji was curious. "Why?"

"Your father wants me to go to Yokozuka to … receive some equipment."

"Yokozuka?" Shinji said slowly, finding a strange inflection in the way she'd uttered that statement. There was no reason for her to keep such information from him, and he didn't think that she was, but she sounded less certain than she normally would when it came to NERV business.

"Yeah, that's all I can really say. You know how it is, men like the Commander like keeping their secrets. It's nothing too troublesome. I should be back in a few days."

Shinji was not convinced. There was a familiar empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. "But…"

"It's only for a few days," Misato repeated, her gaze making Shinji feel as though he was not supposed to object. "You can stay by yourself. You always do anyway."

"Yeah, I guess," Shinji replied hesitantly.

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" Misato asked. Her voice was full of concern. "I mean I could …"

"I'll be fine," Shinji whispered, not even sure why the notion that she would be away bothered him. He was used to being alone, but now, with his thoughts confused over Asuka, and unable to go to Rei, it seemed like a reminder of how things had been right after Kaworu's death. Being by himself was not the same as being alone.

"I'm sure you will. You are a big boy, Shinji-kun." Misato smiled. A grin displayed, Shinji was sure, more for his benefit than for any other reason. "Tell you what, when I get back I'll take you out to dinner."

"A-ah, thanks."

"Just don't go having wild parties while I'm gone, okay?"

Misato turned and slipped into her room. Shinji waited for the door to close before he looked down at his homework; the open notebook stared back at him expectantly. He put the pencil down and stood, no longer caring if it got done or not.

Stepping around the low table, he crossed the living room and walked down the hallway that led to the other two bedrooms. He stopped at his door, feeling almost as if something was tugging at his T-shirt from behind. He looked over his shoulder and saw only a plain door no different than the one in front of him. That had once been his door, until he was forced to move across the hall—until Asuka had kicked him out.

Her bedroom had always been a haven. Even without the lock she'd rigged, Shinji would always think twice before stepping inside. It was a strange contradiction: plucking her panties out of the laundry hamper and overtly sexualizing her were shameful things, though he did them regardless because he couldn't help it, but other parts of her life he felt the need to respect.

That was a line he dared not cross.

Asuka's bedroom had always seemed to be on the other side of that line. It was closed, intimate space, her space, and there was no getting close to Asuka without getting hurt. She would make sure of that.

"Shinji, have you seen my—" Misato's voice stopped abruptly, replaced by footsteps. "Shinji?" She appeared around the corner. "Homework all done?"

Shinji shrugged. Then, without any conscious thought, his pale blue eyes drifted towards Asuka's door.

An awkward silence came between them.

"You miss her, don't you?" Misato asked after a moment.

A part of him thought it was ridiculous question—saying that he missed Asuka was like saying that he missed being bullied and beaten. But another part, the part surprised at the look on her face earlier, the part that had pushed him into that tunnel when the Angel was descending into Central Dogma, knew that he did miss her, very badly.

Suddenly, even the silence reminded him she was gone. He missed her loudness, her voice. Misato wouldn't understand. Her opinion of Asuka was far too different and less forgiving. Worse, she would ask questions and make him feel more uncomfortable than he already was. And so, Shinji did the only thing that he could think of doing.

He lied.

"No."

Misato seemed to take a moment to decide if she believed him or not, then she sighed. "Yeah, I guess you wouldn't." Her shoulders sank noticeably. She said nothing more as she returned across the living room to her room.

Shinji lingered in the hall after she was gone, until something overcame him—curiosity, longing, a sudden, desperate need to feel closer to someone who was no longer there. He stepped forward and gently slid Asuka's door open, feeling like a thief in the night.

The place was mess; the girl who lived in it had never been one for tidiness after all. Shinji had once offered to clean it for her, but she refused. He walked absently across the threshold. The air was hot and stale and smelled of emptiness. There was a window on the far wall, casting a glimmer of moonlight into the otherwise darkened space. He could see discarded clothing lying on the floor, a few plates and cups, empty snack wrappers, magazines and a fluffy striped pillow where she had laid.

Shinji moved in deeper, slowly, like an explorer threading a dangerous jungle path. There were still plenty of boxes laying around, never unpacked. He was almost to the bed, a large cumbersome piece with metal railings at the foot and the head, when he stepped on a curling iron. He bent over to pick it up, but as he did he noticed that one of the magazines had been almost completely destroyed. He reached for it instead.

Asuka had ripped out some of the pages, and defaced the rest, drawing faces on the models or blacking them out with angry pen strokes. She had also evidently stabbed at the pages, judging by the deep puncture marks, and scrawled lines all over in German. He recognized her sloppy penmanship but not the words.

Then he noticed that the magazine wasn't the only thing that showed signs of Asuka's fury; there was a dent on the curling iron, as if she had smashed it on something; several more magazines were also torn apart; the nearby pillow had been ripped open.

And while he had seen Asuka's fury manifested in many ways, he had the heavy sense that there was more to this than just her anger. Asuka was very possessive—she wouldn't destroy the things she owned merely out of anger. His heart sank when he understood.

These weren't the signs of someone who was just angry, they were signs of someone in pain. Someone in a lot of pain. Someone who was hurt, and lonely.

Someone he had done his best to ignore.

For the first time since meeting her, Shinji thought that maybe Asuka had every right to hate him.

Rei came back the next morning.

Oddly, nobody really seemed to notice. Shinji was among the few that did, but when he tried to talk to her the blue-haired girl was more withdrawn than usual. Her body carried no trace of the severe injuries that he had expected to see on her after the battle, and certainly nothing that would have kept her in the hospital. Her hair had grown a little, and her eyes had a dull, almost haunted look to them. He asked her if she was feeling well, if she had brought anything to eat, if she needed his help for anything.

The answer to every question was no. But just when Shinji began to get the impression that he was annoying her, Rei smiled and thanked him for his concern. That made his chest ache. He remembered that smile on that face, but not her own. And when she took his hand he nearly broke down and hugged her.

"I'm glad you are okay," he told her.

"I am as well."

There were other students staring at them by then, and Shinji knew it must have looked weird. After all the trouble with Asuka he didn't want to be weird with Rei.

He went back to his desk. Kensuke was waiting for him. "Ayanami's back," the otaku said.

"Don't call her that," Shinji said, pulling out his chair and sitting down.

Kensuke frowned, confused. "She's Rei Ayanami. What am I supposed to call her?"

"Rei."

His friend looked at him like he had gone crazy. "That's what I said."

"You called her Ayanami," Shinji said sourly. "She doesn't like that. Call her Rei."

Kensuke laughed. He didn't understand. "Man, I think all those Eva incidents are taking their toll on your head." He dropped into the chair next to him. "Did Major Katsuragi say anything about Asuka? She's missing."

"I don't know."

Asuka's empty desk was a sight Shinji had become terribly used to when she was in the hospital, those three long months when it seemed like he would never see or hear from her again.

Differently from Rei, Shinji made up his mind to talk to her even if it meant being weird. He didn't care that she might yell at him and call him stupid. She could hate him if she wanted, but he would let her know that the feeling was not mutual … that she was important to him, and maybe more.

"Well, at least Rei is back." Kensuke tilted his head towards the blue-haired girl.

"You said that already," Shinji replied, looking over his shoulder to where Rei sat. She was staring at something outside the window, her usual thoughtful-but-distant expression on her face. She shifted her gaze to Shinji. Their eyes met for a single second before he looked away.

"She seems fine," Kensuke said.

"Yeah," Shinji said, suddenly recalling that he had said the same thing to Misato the night before and that it wasn't true, just like the lie he'd told about missing Asuka. "It's strange."

"What?"

"Misato said she was hurt," Shinji said. It didn't really matter. His guardian was already gone on her trip and it would be at least a few days before he saw her again, and Rei was here now, apparently unharmed. He should be glad for that.

"It's like nothing happened," Kensuke said, eyes narrowed as he turned them towards Rei with suspicion. "Kinda spooky. Does NERV have some kind of new medical technology? I heard rumors the military's been playing around with some genetic splicing stuff."

Shinji shrugged. He had no answer to that.

It was late afternoon by the time he returned home, having gotten Hikari to excuse him from clean-up duty. The Class Rep. refused to say anything about Asuka when he asked but he could tell she was trying to hide something. Hikari was usually pretty forthcoming, and seldom kept secrets. This seemed to be one of those few occasions. He decided not to press the issue.

As he swiped his key card over the lock, the Third Child felt like doing nothing more than making a warm meal and listening to his S-DAT until he went to bed. With Misato gone he had become resigned to being alone all weekend, and that was just fine with him. But as soon as he entered the apartment he heard the noise from the shower.

His first thought was that Misato must have come back. It seemed odd, though not too much since his guardian's schedule tended to be very erratic. Suddenly he was glad to have some company. Maybe he could make dinner for both of them.

Removing his shoes, Shinji stepped past the tiled landing and tossed his book bag onto the kitchen table.

"I'm home, Misato," he called out, deciding that whatever must have happened for Misato to be back so quickly was probably for the best.

He was leaving the kitchen to go change out of his uniform when he heard a strange sound coming from down the hallway. Shinji looked around the corner towards the noise, and it was then that he saw the blue penguin standing in front of his door.

"Kwark!"

"Pen-Pen?" Shinji smiled almost instantly. He had a feeling that if the bird could mimic the gesture he would have done it.

"Kwark!" Pen-Pen covered the distance between them with a most un-penguin-like speed, wobbling excitedly on his short, stubby legs. The boy knelt down to wrap his arms around the bird, as if he were a pillow. Pen-Pen tried to do the same with his flippers.

"Hello, Pen-Pen. It's nice to see you." Shinji could barely contain the sense of joy he felt. It was then that he realized that something didn't quite add up. He let the penguin out of his embrace and looked at him curiously. "But ... how did you get here? Did Misato pick you up from Hikari's?"

"No," a haughty, familiar voice called out from behind him. "I did."

For a second, Shinji thought that he was hearing things. Her turned his head in disbelief towards the direction of the voice, just in time to catch Asuka as she stepped across the threshold of the kitchen.

Seeing the German redhead standing there was like having a bucket of cold water thrown on him, freezing him instantly on the spot. He found it impossible to look away.

Asuka was only wearing a towel, wrapped tightly above her bust line and reaching barely down to mid-thigh. Her golden-red hair was damp and stuck to her skin. There were still tiny beads of moisture clinging to her from head to toe, as if she had rushed out of the shower without bothering to dry off. It didn't take long before the carpet under her pretty, bare feet started becoming wet.

With one hand she clutched the knot of the towel between her breasts, while the other brushed back locks of hair from her eyes. Even Pen-pen had stopped to look, but since he had no interest in this, he turned back to Shinji.

"Well?" Asuka began, smiling slightly. Her blue eyes beamed as she fixed them on Shinji, a sharp grin on her lips. "Aren't you going to say something?"

Shinji would, if only he had any idea what to say.

"A-Asuka…" he managed, straightened himself up and leaving the penguin to wrap his flippers around his leg.

"I normally don't do things like this," Asuka went on, either not noticing or not caring about his hesitation, "but I wasn't going to wait around for Misato to make up her mind. I don't need her permission to do anything, anyway."

Shinji scarcely knew where to start, still dumbstruck by her presence, not to mention the fact that she was standing practically naked in front of him. So, he reverted to the most obvious question. "But … how? Why?"

The German girl's features turned serious, the smile vanished, as if she were looking deep inside herself to find an answer.

"This is my home," she said finally. "I took care of everything. Section 2 wouldn't take orders from me so I had to bring most of my things over from Hikari's place myself. I asked Misato, but she left town before anything could be arranged."

"Asuka-" Shinji tried to say something, but the redhead cut him short.

"Don't get me wrong. Hikari's got a very nice place, but it was not the same. I…" she stopped, looking troubled, "I felt lonely."

"You too?" That was all Shinji come up with. He said it before he could think about it, and the result was that it sounded more sincere than he would have normally been around her. For once, he didn't mutter.

Asuka paused to think about that, exactly the opposite of Shinji's impulsive reaction. "You might be an idiot, and a pushover, and so annoying it's impossible to deal with. But you are good company."

Shinji blinked, puzzled. Compliments were so rare coming from her and, as now, were usually peppered with mild insults. The tone of her voice, the way she said those things, however, made it clear which parts were meant to be taken seriously. There was a hint of haughtiness—Asuka didn't give without taking something back.

"T-thank you," Shinji replied, blushing slightly. "You…are good company too."

Asuka walked slowly over to him, dripping on the carpet as she moved. She got as close as she could without stepping over Pen-pen, who was still holding on to Shinji. The penguin readily moved aside, allowing the redhead to stand right in front of the Third Child.

"Now what, Third Child?" Asuka asked.

Shinji felt his cheeks start to color warmly.

This was it, he knew. His heart was thumping loudly in his chest. He was afraid, but also deeply aware that if he couldn't say it to her now, then he would never be able to. Pledging not to run away also meant not running away from his responsibility to other people.

Maybe it was the fact that she only had towel on or the expectant look she carried on her young face, normally locked into a snarl or a frown, but for the moment, he didn't feel threatened by her at all. A new openness seemed to have dawned on those brilliant blue eyes, like she was waiting for him to do something to reinforce her decision to come back... wanting him to.

The last time that they had been this close, they had said horrible things to each other. They had wounded each other deeply, and he had made her cry. He would never forget what he'd done, nor forgive himself for it. He didn't expect that Asuka would, but if there ever was a chance he knew this was it.

"Asuka, I'm sorry," Shinji hesitated, waiting to see if she would yell at him like she always did for apologizing. When she didn't, he added with some uncertainty, "I-I shouldn't have said those things to you. I don't hate you. And I don't want you to die."

A hidden pain crossed Asuka's face, making Shinji sink further into guilt. It seemed to take her a moment to gather her thoughts.

"I'm not going to apologize for what I said about Rei,"she growled. "I don't like her, and I never will." She paused. "But maybe I shouldn't have said it to you. Maybe I shouldn't have blamed you for caring about her more than you cared about me. It was just …" Her face changed. "No, that's it. That's all you're gonna get out of me, Third Child."

Some people would not have accepted that. Certainly, it was a dodgy way to settle things, given how viciously Asuka attacked Rei and then Shinji, and how much pain her words had caused. But it was more than enough for Shinji. He would have taken any apology coming from her, even if it really wasn't meant as such.

Was he letting her off the hook? Probably. By simply showing up, Asuka was getting her way, as she always did. She despised him for letting people walk all over him, yet that was just what he was doing now. And he didn't care.

"So, um, do you want me to make dinner?" he said, hoping he didn't sound too weaselly.

The smile returned to Asuka's face. Not her normal plastic, insincere grin. A real smile.

"Honestly?" She leaned forward so she could whisper in his ear. "I could eat just about anything right now." Her tone was strangely teasing, and a little husky.

Shinji could feel her movements, her heat against him, smell her hair and hear his own heart pumping nervously in his chest. This was not a dream, he knew. Asuka was real and he was not alone anymore.

He had to ask.

"Are you ... still lonely?"

Asuka thought about it, and the fact that she had to already said a lot. "Maybe," she replied vaguely, moving back and pressing her lips together. Her face was strangely uncertain. "Do you still care?"

Despite his own doubts the answer came easy. "Yeah."

"How long?" she pressed on, her eyebrows moving together as if the threat of a frown would assure his honesty better than the world's most powerful truth serum.

"I don't know." He really didn't. The feelings had come so gradually that there was no single point in time when Asuka stopped being the annoying redhead he was forced to room with out of necessity and become something more. "I … I think …" he felt suddenly stupid. "Maybe since I met you."

"Like you do Rei?"

Shinji swallowed awkwardly. It was a loaded question; he'd rather avoid the subject of Rei altogether. Bringing her up was a surefire way to end in another fight, and he didn't really think it mattered much that he cared for both of the them equally, or one over the other. In Asuka's mind, though, it clearly did.

But then, as if deciding not to put him on the spot any further, Asuka said, "I hate this. I really hate it. But I'm not going to pretend that finding out someone cares about me means nothing. Because it does. I wouldn't be here if it didn't."

It warmed Shinji's heart to hear her say it. At least he knew that his affection for her was not completely unrequited.

"For now I'm willing to leave it at that," Asuka stepped back with an air of finality. "Deal?"

Shinji nodded. He said nothing; neither did Asuka. But while he was used to being quiet, having her do the same was decidedly strange. Her voice had a unique quality to it that filled a room whenever she spoke, though its shrillness, like her ego, kept people at a distance. The common perception of her as a arrogant and shallow girl was not entirely inaccurate, not any more than Shinji's label as a doormat.

Asuka was those things, certainly, but she was more too. Just as Shinji was more. They had both failed to see that in each other. It was both their fault, and they had to shoulder the blame for that mistake. Shinji intended to. Whether Asuka did as well would be up to her.

Eventually, Pen-pen seemed to decide that he was no longer interested in the two roommates and headed to the kitchen. His ice box was probably frozen solid by now, having not been used in so long.

As the penguin wiggled around her legs, Asuka looked down at herself and tightened her hold on the towel. "Ugh, I guess I should go get dressed." The she looked back at Shinji, a teasing glimmer in her eyes. "Or maybe you'd like to have me like this."

Shinji felt a surge of embarrassment course through him. "Um … I, well..."

Asuka blushed. "Ew!" She shoved him playfully. "I didn't mean have me like that, pervert! Gott, I just came back and you are already having lewd thoughts about me."

"S-sor-"

Asuka shoved him again before he could finish, much harder this time, grinning with glee like a girl playing a game that she was very good at. He stumbled clumsily backwards, tripping over his own feet and flailing his arms as he fell. His hand grabbed onto the closest thing it could find, which just happened to be the front of Asuka's towel.

Far from helping, the garment simply tore right off.

The Third Child landed hard on his rear with a solid thud and a grunt of pain, the stolen towel grasped in his hand. When he looked up, wincing, he found Asuka standing over him like a statue, her expression oddly stuck between stunned shock and fresh simmering anger. She seemed almost to be waiting for something, frozen, silent and now also completely naked.

Confronted with this sight, Shinji froze as solidly as the redhead, staring openly. He couldn't believe how much of her there was. And he saw it all.

It felt like it took a very long heartbeat before his roommate finally glanced down at her nudity. Her face quickly turned redder than a tomato. The shade suited her very much.

Shinji's own face grew hot. "I didn't mean to!" he blurted out. "I'm sorry!"

Asuka screamed, a high-pitched squeal that was soon followed by loud, furious cursing in several languages. None were Japanese. Panicking, Shinji hastily tried to apologize again, over and over.

He was still going at it when Asuka suddenly vanished and his vision filled with the bottom of a single slender foot, flying towards him.

Then he didn't see anything.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	8. Empathy

Notes: As always thanks go to Big D for going over this. Also, thanks to Darknemo for the feedback and Jimmy for all the advice. Finally, I'd like to thank all the people who take the time to write reviews. It's always appreciated and helpful. Believe it or not I have started on chapter 9 so the wait should be less than usual.

* * *

Evangelion Genocide: Extended

By: Rommel

"Fear, I have observed, would induce men to shun one another; but the marks of this fear being reciprocal, would soon engage them to associate." -Baron de Montesquieu

Genocide 0:08 / Empathy

* * *

The office of the Japanese Minister of the Interior was a lavish affair. High walls were decorated with long vertical wooden panels leading up to a skylight. The floor was polished black marble, sprinkled with specks of white that shined like stars in the night sky. The room was rectangular, with a heavy wooden door at the entryway, and an elaborate desk opposite.

This arrangement forced any visitor to walk a long distance in plain view of the Minister, a disarming prospect for even the most senior bureaucrat. Department Chief Musashi Kluge, however, was not intimidated. He had been in this office often enough, and one day it might even be his. People in his position didn't fall prey to intimidation.

As Kluge approached, the Minister looked his way, finishing with the buttons on his suit jacket. He was a heavyset man, not exceedingly fat, but not fit either. He was younger as well. Kluge was keenly aware that appointments such as his had more to with who you knew than merit or experience.

"I asked my staff to reschedule," the Minister said gruffly. "But I suppose you are not an easy man to brush off."

The Minister's staff had rescheduled; Kluge had simply ignored them. Once a Department Chief showed up at the door, not even the most hardheaded acolyte could deny him entry. "I suppose someone will need to start looking for a job then."

"Quite true." The Minister ran a hand over his collar and straightened his tie. "If you don't mind, I have somewhere to be."

A cocktail party, no doubt, Kluge thought. "Very well, if you don't mind me being blunt, I would like to know why the Flying Vanguard was given permission to enter Japanese territorial waters when we know its shipment is a violation of Japanese sovereignty."

The Minister frowned. "You mean the ship carrying the American Evangelion?"

"Precisely."

"The Security Council has not refused the move," the Minister said with a shrug.

"They were not informed according to protocol. They were, in fact, ignored until the move had already been made. Therefore, even tacit approval represents a violation of their own rules. In such a case, Japan is not under any obligation to abide by any agreement to receive another Evangelion."

The Minister seemed put-upon. "New Yokozuka is largely a UN military operation—that is to say, it is bound by UN agreements more than by Japanese law. And as far as I know, the port license has been issued. NERV has committed to take delivery from the Americans. The UN has not refused thus far. To be quite honest, I don't see why we should either. Another Evangelion in our hands is one less in the hands of all those people out there who don't like us."

"America sits on the Security Council, with a full veto," Kluge was quick to retort. "You don't think they have conflicting interests in all this?"

"To do what? They are terrified of the thing. After what happened in China I can't say I blame them. These things have a way of going horribly wrong. But then again, they don't have a man like Gendo Ikari at their disposal."

It was now Kluge who was annoyed. "He's not at your disposal," he said firmly. "You can't control him, or anything that he does."

"And what do you suggest, that we should intercept a United States-flagged ship? Wars have started over less." He fixed Kluge with a stare, as the skin around his dark eyes tightened. "Besides, if your department had done its job we might have known about this beforehand, thus giving us time to object through the proper channels."

Kluge felt his jaw clench. "That is hardly a fair assessment."

"But accurate. Another in your department's long list of failures in dealing with NERV. A list that seems to be growing quite rapidly these days."

Kluge had never been a man to suffer unfounded criticism well, particularly from the likes of self-interested men such as this; men who had no idea what it took to run the world. But his anger was somewhat mitigated by the fact that he had not expected anything else out of this meeting. He had already made his point simply by being here despite the Minister's best efforts to keep him at bay.

I am here because I can be, Kluge thought.

The Minister knew that as well. It was implied in the first thing he said.

Kluge could be a pragmatic man. Needs and wants were merely goals and means to a man with enough determination to make them happen. But Kluge was also a patient man, and the ladder to Heaven was built on patience. He knew now that the Japanese government would not, on the whole, object to NERV's actions, and that these actions might be seen as beneficial by certain parts of this giant machine. It was a fantasy, of course, but one which people blinded by power and ego failed to see so long as those things fell in line with NERV, and more precisely, Gendo Ikari.

Other measures would have to be taken. So be it, then. Congressman Keel would not miss a single Mass-Produced Evangelion. With the K-type system completed, SEELE could build and operate dozens.

"Now, Department Chief," the Minister made a gesture with his hand towards the door, "if you will excuse me."

Kluge stepped to the side, no longer feeling any undue concern.

As the Minister walked towards the door, an aide appeared from a service entrance to the side and held the door open for him. A second man came for Kluge. "Sir, if you please. We must lock up after the Minister."

He left the Minister's office at a brisk walk, not hurrying but not wanting to linger either. He crossed the wide atrium, his steps echoing on the polished marble floor. The place was empty, only a few orderlies moving about here and there, between heavy wooden desks arranges on either side. As he approached the door he was met by his own aide, a young man with dark brown hair whose name Kluge had never bothered to remember.

"Sir," the man saluted as Kluge approached. "You have a message."

Kluge took the offered cell phone. Like other high-ranking government officials, Musashi Kluge did not have a phone number to be reached at. His office dealt with information, filtering out what was valuable and what was not. But there were ways to contact him directly. Nakayima had such a way before he was cut off. So had Kaji Ryuji.

As Kluge looked at the screen on the phone he recognized the originator number. Originators were unique identifying numbers assigned to agents in the field to track information. They were like serial numbers attached to people to verify that messages were indeed from whom they purported to be.

And this particular number could not be in use anymore. Kluge had, regrettably, been forced to see to that. Yet there is was.

Field agents never worked in a vacuum so it was entirely possible they would give away their numbers in case of an emergency to people the trusted utterly. Kluge knew of at least one such relationship in Kaji's life. He pressed the playback button below the screen.

It was not who he expected.

* * *

Out of the corner of his eye, Shinji saw Asuka rise up on her toes and reach for the bag of potato chips on top of the fridge. He was standing in front of the stove, only just getting started on dinner, and more than a little surprised that she had helped herself rather than ordering him to get the chips for her.

Asuka opened the bag and gingerly raised one of the golden-brown chips to her mouth as if uncertain whether she would like it. She made a face. "Yuck. Original. How boring."

Shinji couldn't help a tiny chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Asuka sounded peeved.

Shinji turned his attention hastily back to the pot of water that he had placed on the stove. "Nothing," he said sheepishly. "But, um, you shouldn't be eating those anyway. You'll ruin your appetite."

Like bratty children everywhere, Asuka made a high-pitched noise of discontent and tossed the bag of chips on the table. Frowning, she made her way back to the living room from where she'd come just a moment ago. Then, apparently remembering that Shinji had no real authority over her, stopped and turned, a hand on her hip. "What the hell are you cooking anyway?"

Shinji gave her a tilt of his head, shifting his gaze in her direction. "Rice for now. I've got some chicken ... why? You want something else?"

"No." Asuka pouted. "I was just wondering why you felt like cooking when we could just order some take out."

"I don't think Misato would like it if we went around charging things to her credit card while she's gone." Shinji knew he sounded rather housebroken the instant he said it. It was, however, the truth.

Asuka rolled her eyes.

"God, don't you ever get tired of being such a Goody-Two-Shoes? I swear, Third Child, you are absolutely the most obnoxious ..." Whatever else he was, Shinji never got a chance to hear; by then, Asuka had walked off in annoyance, gesturing with her hands as she vanished from sight.

Shinji had to admit that she had a point. It didn't bother him much, at least not in the same way that having her yell his other flaws at him did. And there had been remarkably little yelling in the two days they had spent by themselves in the apartment that weekend. Mostly there was silence, marked by a few interactions such as the one that had just taken place.

And, of course, lots of complaining from the redhead. But even that was different from before. Shinji got the sense that Asuka was merely pointing out things she didn't like, as opposed to her more common practice of blaming him for them. This made her much easier to deal with.

The fact that she wasn't being malicious about it also made the complaints easier to accept, and, as in this case, to recognize when she might be right.

Shinji turned off the stove with a flick of his hand, reaching behind his waist and undoing the knot of the apron, which he then removed and draped over the back of the nearest chair. Picking up the bag of chips from the table, he followed Asuka into the living room.

The German redhead was lying sprawled on her stomach in front of the TV, hugging a large, fluffy pillow beneath her head, a bare foot swirling high in the air behind her. Pen Pen was lying next to her, his flippers spread out on the carpet. Neither one of them seemed to noticed as Shinji moved closer, stooped down, and gently placed the chips next to Asuka.

"Here."

Asuka turned her head away and huffed. "I don't want them anymore."

Shinji sighed. "Come on." He nudged the chips closer. "I didn't mean to be bossy with you. I don't mind if you want take out, I just thought you'd want a home-cooked meal."

By now, Pen-pen was eying the chips rather interestedly.

"Yeah, fine." Asuka shifted her posture, rolling slightly to her side and grabbing the chips. She wasted no time stuffing a few of them in her mouth, leaving crumbs on her rosy lips, and tossed a few of the flat crispy flakes to the penguin across from her.

Feeling a little bit better, Shinji straightened up and looked at the TV. As far as he knew, Asuka didn't have a favorite show, but she tended to like watching American shows—which for the most part were badly translated. Maybe they reminded her of where she was from, but he could only guess. The only other thing she watched were soaps, and Shinji had a feeling she had gotten into them just to be able to talk about them knowledgeably with Hikari and the girls at school.

It was the latter that she was watching now; an overly dramatized show about high school students much like themselves where it seemed everyone was involved in a love affair with everyone else.

Shinji spotted a second pillow nearby. He took it, and, propping it up against the low table, sat down to watch. He was not much for the boob-tube, preferring instead the quiet solitude of his S-DAT, but it seemed wrong to walk away from the moment. Asuka was back in his life, for better or for worse. And having her here only made him realize that he had missed her even more than he thought.

Predictably, perhaps inevitably, Shinji found his gaze wandering away from the moving images on the television and focusing on Asuka's enticing form. Her attention was elsewhere, a neutral expression on her face, awash in the glow from the TV. She wasn't blinking, and she seemed oblivious to the actual show. She was clearly thinking about something, her mind lost beyond her immediate surroundings.

But before Shinji could consider what it might be, his eyes caught another, more interesting detail—her dark shorts had ridden up a little, revealing a tiny sliver of white panties underneath.

The tease did not have its usual effect on Shinji. She was no longer merely an object of lust lying there for his pleasure, nor did he felt guilt at seeing that part of her without her knowing. He was just glad that she was there with him, that he could see her at all.

Slowly, he felt a smile forming on his face.

"Hey, Shinji." Suddenly, Asuka called out, making Shinji jump and quickly avert his eyes. She pushed up on her arms and sat up, shapely legs folding beneath her. "Aren't you gonna talk about your synch test?"

"Uh...no," he hesitated, feeling flustered. She must have noticed him looking at her and now wanted to make him uncomfortable. "I mean, well, I didn't know that you were interested in that stuff."

Shinji had almost forgotten about it. Earlier in the day he had gone to Central Dogma for a few hours to fulfill a required test scheduled by Ritsuko. Although he was reluctant to do it, he'd learned from experience that the blonde doctor was not easily dissuaded. And she was even harder to argue with than Asuka because she, unlike the young redhead, could present extremely logical and disarming arguments. He would rather get it over with and return to the apartment in time to make dinner.

The day before Asuka had performed the same test, but when she came back she had seemed quite upset and locked herself in her room. Later she had claimed to have a bad headache and nausea. Shinji gave her some aspirin and that was the end of it. That night Asuka was back to normal. She had even offered to help with his homework.

The test turned out to be no big deal. Since his wounds were not completely healed, he had just sat in the entry-plug and took deep breaths for the most part.

"It was your first time since the Angel attack, wasn't it?" Asuka leaned forward, placing her hands on her ankles.

Shinji nodded silently. He did not want to remember that, nor any of the awful feelings attached to the desperate struggle. It was too much; he felt like the pain would never go away. He still had nightmares.

Asuka picked up on his reluctance. Her bright curiosity of a second ago turned grim. "Did it feel … different?"

Shinji blinked in surprise. "Different?"

"Yeah, different," Asuka repeated softly. "Come on, tell me. How did it feel when you went back to your Eva?"

"It…" Shinji didn't know how to explain it. "Warm, I guess. Almost nice."

"Nice? What the hell does that mean?"

Shinji focused on the sensations, trying to recall them and bring more vividly to life hoping it might help him describe them better. "I don't know. But when I'm inside it feels … safe," he began. "It's comfortable, like a hug."

"A hug?" Asuka said sharply. "Are you stupid?"

He did sort of feel that way. "You asked. I don't know. But it's warm and comfortable so I guess that's the best way I can describe it. Like being hugged by someone you care about."

"You mean someone like your mother?" Asuka replied bluntly.

Shinji had thought about that, but he wasn't sure he wanted to share such a personal emotion with her. His mother was a touchy subject.

"Um, well, I guess," he said vaguely. "Something like that. Don't you feel the same way when you are in yours?"

"No," Asuka murmured. Her head dropped as if a heavy weight had suddenly been placed on it. "I used to. Not anymore."

Shinji felt his heart stop at her reaction. It was a subtle change in her expression, the sort of thing he might have missed had he not been looking hard enough. He could see her sinking on the inside, into abject, absolute misery.

He was afraid—afraid that he might lose her forever if he stopped talked, afraid to let her wallow by herself in whatever new despair his answer to her question had plunged her into. He did the only thing he could think of doing. "S-so what does it feel like?"

"It feels empty."

"Empty?" he repeated.

Asuka nodded, then lifted a hand to brush off locks of hair that had come across her eyes. "I used to feel comfortable, like you said. It was pleasant and safe. I belonged there. Now…it's empty. I know it sounds stupid, but when I'm in Unit-02, I feel alone."

Shinji was confused. Piloting Unit-01 could certainly feel strange, and the first time he had done it was simply bizarre. But he would never say it felt like he was alone. If anything, that was the one thing it didn't feel like. "It's … it's not stupid."

There was silence; the two teens looked at each other intently, Shinji's pale-blue orbs flooded with unspoken concern, Asuka's bright-blue ones brooding. Pen-pen was paying attention, too, the fake drama on the television forgotten in favor of the real one taking place right in the living room.

Finally, Asuka heaved a sigh and let her body fall backwards onto the pillow. "You don't know anything." She stared at the ceiling. "Something is missing. Something important. It used to be there and now it's gone, and I can't tell what it was."

"You'll figure it out," Shinji said. "You always figure things out. Remember those math problems I always have so much trouble with? You make them seem so easy."

Asuka snorted sarcastically. "This isn't like doing your homework, Third Child. Any idiot can do that."

* * *

New Yokosuka was a hub of chaotic activity, like any modern seaport attempting to simultaneously organize and dispatch a fleet of ships loaded with humanitarian aid and receive two Panamax-class supertankers escorted by six destroyers and an AEGIS missile cruiser would have been. And as expected from any government operation, it wasn't going very smoothly.

The American fleet carrying Unit-08 had been docked for almost two days now, and workers had been doing 12 hour shifts in order to get all of the equipment unloaded on schedule ever since, but despite their efforts they had fallen behind almost immediately. To top it off, the longer shifts had made Misato the most unpopular person within a hundred miles.

The Evangelion in question had already been brought onto land and was being prepared for transport via one of NERV's specially-designed trains waiting in the dockyard. That had been easy compared to what followed. Unit-08 was big and there was only one of it, but the spare parts, supplies, and other cargo that came along had to be offloaded, sorted and shipped as well. Having to split the available cranes between inbound and outbound shipments didn't help. The Yokosuka harbor master had been adamant that the port would neither halt traffic nor allocate more resources for the unloading operation.

And then there was the language barrier.

A large majority of the people working at the docks were soldiers and Third Branch personnel brought from America, and none of them spoke or read Japanese. The few English-speaking NERV officers had been quickly reduced to traffic cops in an effort to sort out the confusion when they could have been more useful elsewhere. Everyone was growing increasingly frustrated, including Misato.

She watched from the bridge of the Flying Vanguard, high atop the chaos, and shook her head as somebody below dropped a crate right in the path of an incoming forklift.

Predictably, the people that gathered around the crate quickly started yelling and pointing instead of picking up the fallen gear.

Misato sighed, shaking her head. She had been working almost continually for the last few days, and was thankful that the unloading operation was nearing its end. The Flying Vanguard, the largest ship in port at the moment, was being used as the primary headquarters by the American officers, but the bridge was currently empty except for the skeleton crew necessary to maintain shipboard operations. The man standing beside her was an American, in charge of all of the non-military workers.

"What a mess," Lieutenant Mitchell Salgado, a Seventh Branch analyst, said in English. "It looked a lot better when we were planning it."

"It always does," Misato replied in Japanese, knowing her was among the few that would understand her. She was not in a particularly good mood, but she did her best to hide her sense of annoyance. Not being able to call Shinji or check on Asuka was wearing on her. "Trust me, I know about these kind of things."

"I don't doubt that you do. You have quite a history." He smiled at her. "Catch it from space? Really?"

Misato shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

It seemed like the only idea at the time, she corrected to herself.

"At least we are still within schedule again, if barely," Misato said. "That is something to be thankful for."

"That and the fact that we are not being harassed by the media," the American said. "I guess we should give thanks for small miracles."

"Americans are really obsessed with the media, aren't they?"

Salgado nodded, his green eyes sparkling with amusement. "You'd be amazed how it is in America, especially with the current administration. If you ask me, the media is like a leash to keep the people in check. Trivial news, like the President getting a new cat, makes the front page, while important stuff gets shoved to the back…if they talk about it at all." He spread his arms. "Do you think anybody knows about this little operation? Billions in taxpayer money being wasted, but I guarantee you nobody has even brought it up."

"Bread and circuses, isn't it?" Misato said, turning to face the American. "Which reminds me, have our buddies from the Ministry showed up? I'd imagine they would want to be here for this."

He shrugged. "Agent Nakayima is around here somewhere. Not much help if you ask me."

"Do you think he wants to cause problems?" Misato said.

"I don't think so. He seems uninterested, but not malicious. His position is merely ceremonial anyway, signing papers and that kind of thing. My people and yours know what they are doing so there's not much he could screw up." His face turned more serious. "On the other hand, I am worried that the Japanese government hasn't been more forceful in opposing this transfer."

Misato narrowed her eyes. "They don't have much recourse after the UN signed off on the orders."

"What NERV wants, NERV gets. I'm really liking this brave new world of ours."

Misato refrained from mentioning that this 'brave new world' was built upon almost half-a-million dead Chinese. Then again, the last 15 years of world history were built on the deaths of billions and the lies to cover it all up.

"Major Katsuragi?"

Misato and Salgado turned to the voice. Junichi Nayakima, clad in his black MOI uniform, stepped through the doorway. He looked frazzled, his brown skin glistening with sweat from the harsh sun outside, the sling around his shoulder and holding his arm making him appear awkward. But there was more to his countenance than just plain discomfort.

"Yes, Agent Nakayima?" Misato said, trying to sound pleasant.

The agent crossed the bridge, moving sideways to slip between two radar consoles. Their operators, neither one of which could have been older than eighteen years old, looked up at him and frowned as he passed.

"May I have a moment with you?" Nakayima said when he was standing in front of her. "Outside? In private?"

Misato and the Lieutenant exchanged glances. "Sure," she said.

They walked outside. Nakayima led the way and Misato followed, their footsteps thudding as they walked on the metal gantry that surrounded the bridge superstructure and down a flight of stairs to the deck below. The ship had been converted from the standard cargo configuration, with the foredeck normally reserved for stacking containers modified to fit the holding pins and casket protecting Unit-08 during its transit. Once the Eva unit was removed it left behind an empty hollowed-out shell, partially flooded with water for stability.

Nakayima stopped at the bottom of the stair, then moved aside to let Misato pass. She took up position by the railing on the left, leaning back on it. They were on the port side of the ship, overlooking the dockyard. Below a motley collection of vehicles moved to and from like a disorganized army. There were at least a hundred people on the yard, each doing their own thing or in small groups. Cranes were moving overhead, their operators running on sweat and caffeine. Everywhere Misato looked she saw concrete and steel and ships-warships, cargo ships, small tug boats. In the distance three huge black tarps hid Unit-08 from the sun, looking shockingly like a circus tent.

Bread and circus, Misato repeated to herself. Fitting.

Without her red jacket, the sun fell harshly her bare shoulders. Her hair was tied up into a ponytail and the cap on her head helped to protect her. She wore a short black dress with brown ankle boots. Her father's cross hung between her breasts, white in a sea of black cloth. If she had her way she would have just worn a bikini, but then it was likely that nothing would get done.

The salt was so thick in the air that she could taste it. The sounds of moving equipment and yelling in English and Japanese echoed around her, but the chaos down below only seemed to match what she saw reflected on the agent's face. His features were drawn tightly, his body language stiff. The sling must have been very uncomfortable in this heat.

He must have been insane to wear black, and so much of it. He wouldn't have looked out of place in a funeral.

"I think I need to be honest with you," Nakayima said, and Misato couldn't help being surprised. Men in his line of work were seldom straightforward. "You probably know that part of my job was to spy on NERV. That's not really a big secret. The Ministry of the Interior had reason to believe that Gendo Ikari was a dangerous man, so having a man inside made perfect sense. We never expected to lose Kaji."

The name brought a pang of pain close to Misato's heart. "You knew Kaji?"

"He is the reason I'm talking to you, I suppose. I didn't know him. Not really. But I we worked together more than once. Just regular field stuff, filing paperwork, running leads, that sort of thing. Nothing special. On a few occasions your name came up. He actually kept a picture of you on his desk. The way he spoke of you, I got a sense that he ..."

Misato gave him a warning look, enough to make him realize he had to pick his words carefully when talking about this subject.

"Let me just say that I know he trusted you," Nakayima finished. "And he wasn't a man to trust others easily. So I can assume that whatever existed between you was pretty special."

"I loved him," Misato said bluntly, the memories suddenly brought forth proving much too powerful to resist. Nakayima had no right to know, but she didn't care what he knew.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Strangely, Misato could tell he meant it. "It's okay. If the pain is the price to pay for remembering a loved one, then I will take it."

"That's very brave."

No, it wasn't, Misato almost told him. She could feel something heavy pushing inside her chest, but she managed to swallow her emotions and regarded Nakayima cooly. "So because Kaji trusted me, you think you can too?"

He nodded. "I hope." He took a deep breath. "I'm not very good at staying out of trouble. Being a soldier was easy. Follow orders, do as you are told, all that. But this, working for the Ministry, is different. What happens when your orders are not clear? When you believe that you are doing what you are supposed to do, but really aren't?"

Then you should have stayed in the Army, Misato thought.

"Somehow I have a feeling that this has to do with what happened in China," she said.

"Yeah," Nakayima said. He looked dour. "Musashi Kluge believes that Gendo Ikari is responsible for all of it, and he blames me for not telling him." He raised his shoulder and clenched his jaw, the movement clearly causing him pain. "This is the result."

Misato's mind recoiled, but her body remained perfectly still. "Kluge shot you?"

"With my own gun," he said. "The morning before the angel hit. He said that Ikari was involved even though I had no evidence. He's determined to prove it."

It sounded like some people Misato knew. She wasn't surprised to hear someone like Musashi Kluge, who had a reputation for being ruthless, lived up to the rumors. And that begged a very important question.

"I don't mean to be cruel, but why didn't he just kill you?"

"He said something about me having friends." Nakayima shrugged his good shoulder. "I can promise you I have no idea what he was talking about. If I had friends like those I wouldn't be in this position."

"Some friends like to see you suffer," Misato admitted.

"There's more. Last week, Gendo Ikari made me an offer; I could work for him and he would see to it that I wouldn't be fired. Mind you, being fired in my line of work means that nobody will ever see you again. Ikari himself isn't much better. He made his offer with the barrel of a gun. But, maybe I'm not a traitor if I don't really believe in anything to begin with. Either way, I don't want to die."

Misato didn't know what to say. He could be lying to her, but Ikari was certainly capable of something like that. And she could believe Nakyima was telling the truth. He had absolutely no reason to lie to her. Not obvious ones, at least. The look in his eyes spoke more of desperation than deception.

"Are you asking me to protect you?" the NERV Major concluded. "Is that it?"

Nakayima quickly shook his head. "No, I wouldn't put that kind of burden on you. But I know that I need someone's help if I want to stay alive. Someone to watch my back, so to speak. Someone I can trust."

"And I suppose you have something to offer in return?" Misato said, pushing away from the rail and folding her arms across her chest. The question was a trick—a truly desperate man would act differently from someone playing a bluff.

Nakayima hesitated. "I am not the most well-connected man in the government, but I do know some people."

"I don't have any use for government cronies," she said harshly.

"Then, I have nothing." He opened his hand, the only one he could use, a gesture of surrender. "Just me."

Misato waited. Her eyes were locked on his, her face a solid unreadable mask. The sun beat down on them relentlessly, the heat creating beads of sweat on their skin. On the port side the sea brought in a nice cool breeze, but here the ship's metal seemed to warp the light around it into an oven. The smell of oil and gasoline and salt all mixed together a heavy industrial stench. It might as well have been truth serum.

Finally, Nakayima stepped back.

"Sorry to trouble you." He turned around and headed for the stairs.

He had climbed several steps before Misato called out to him. "You really believe this, don't you?" Her arms fell to her sides, and moved closer. "You really believe that if I don't help you, you will die?"

Nakayima nodded grimly. "Yes. I do."

Misato was not naive; she didn't believe that people could be trusted when they had never proven themselves to be trustworthy. Time and time again she had clung to false ideals and been betrayed. Time and time again people had lied to her, and used her to achieve their own goals. She had made many mistakes, and the people around her had suffered. The world was cruel and unforgiving that way.

She had failed those she cared for the most, and that was a crime she would have to bear; but, here was a chance to prove to herself that the world had not turned her into a cruel woman. Perhaps it was a trap, perhaps not. And it made the decision she felt obligated to make all the more selfless.

"Listen, I may not know anything about you. I may not have any reason to believe you. But I am not about to let you get killed because I refused to help you."

Nakayima looked at her for a long moment. "Thank you."

"To be honest, I don't know what you want me to do." She might as well be honest with him. "Or even what I can do."

"You have already done more than I would have expected from most people." He stepped back down the metal steps, his mood noticeably lifted. "May I ask you a question?"

Misato shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

"Why do you do what you do? How do you decide, when you get up in the morning, if all this," he gestured to the ship and the dock and the chaos around them, "is worth it?"

What could she say to that? The images of her past came to mind: her father, his face obscured as he placed her bleeding form in the escape pod; Shinji and Asuka, their faces smiling, the way she wished that they always were. She took a deep breath.

"I used to be very selfish about it. It was about revenge. My own personal vendetta. But lately, I've found out things that made me doubt all that." Misato shook her head. "I was wrong. So now, when I get around to thinking about it, there is something else that makes it worth it."

"Something, or someone?"

"Someone," she admitted. "Two children who are very dear to me."

Nakayima stayed quiet for a long moment, his solemn expression indicating he understood the significance of what she had said. She knew then, looking at him, that everything he'd told her was the truth; and, that she too had perhaps found someone else to trust.

She turned, and was about to head up the stairs when she had an idea. "Agent Nakayima, do you speak English?"

"A little," he said.

"Then I suppose you won't mind helping our American friends out." She gave him her most disarming smile. "Pretty please."

* * *

For the second night in a row sleep would not find her.

Asuka lay awake on her bed, clutching sheets that were too small to cover her legs and left her feet exposed, and stared out at the darkness of her room. Even the city lights that usually came in through her window seemed to have been turned off. There was only the blackness and silence.

It feels empty, she repeated. Her room, the very air around her-something about them felt wrong. Different. As if it had all changed while she remained the same. It felt just like her Unit-02 had.

Asuka stirred and rolled from one side of her body to the other, tucking the sheets around her like a cocoon. She curled up tightly, feet twisting together as she folded her arms protectively against her chest. Her eyes would not close, her mind would not surrender to sleep. After an hour like this she rolled back and kicked away the sheets. Clad in a loose sleeveless sleeping shirt too short to reach her navel and a pair of stringy panties she might as well have been naked. Her skin was slick with perspiration and her hair stuck to her face, but there was no warmth.

Ever since the battle with the angel, Asuka had known there was something weird going on with her Eva. At first she had found it easy to ignore, elated to just be able to pilot again. For a short time she had been so happy the battle seemed like a bad nightmare. But during the last test the strange feeling had become far more noticeable. And it wasn't just her Eva anymore. She couldn't put her finger on it, or even describe it to Ritsuko when she had made her strip after the test and examined her just as she had when Unit-02 activated.

Asuka had kept some secrets back then, but this time she told her everything-about the feeling and the dead tree in an ocean of LCL and how it talked to her. Ritsuko had listened and asked more question and in the end said it was just stress.

It wasn't. Asuka knew stress. This was something else. It hung at the back of her mind and under her skin like a parasite. And sometimes in her dreams.

Then she tried asking Shinji about it, but his answer was predictably useless. A hug? Asuka didn't like people touching her, and she would die of embarrassment before she let anyone hug her like she was some stupid needy child.

She really should have kept her mouth shut. Talking to Shinji had only left her more worried and confused than before. His Eva still felt right. That meant the problem was either Unit-02 or her, or maybe both. For some reason she thought she could be open with him and that he would understand. After all, he was an Eva pilot just like her. But she knew that by trying to be honest with him she was bringing him closer. Asuka wasn't very sure how she felt about that. If she allowed him close to her, he would hurt her. Everyone else in her life had.

You idiot, Asuka chided herself. You already let him close when you decided to move back in. Now he knows. He has to. But he doesn't understand.

Those thoughts made her squirm uncomfortably. She didn't want Shinji to know, but she wanted … she wanted something. Something that would take the emptiness away.

At some point she must have dozed off without realizing it because between heavy blinks of her eyes the room began to lighten, blacks becoming grays and then turning slowly to color. Sunrise brought with it a dull pounding in her head and the knock on her door was enough to make her wince.

"Asuka!" Shinji's voice was like a hammer through the thin board. "Breakfast is ready."

She said nothing, wishing he would go away.

His voice came again, a little louder this time. "Asuka, wake up. It's Monday. We'll be late."

"Five minutes!" Asuka yelled back. She sat up, looking angrily at the door. It wasn't his fault that she had a rough night, but he was always easy to blame.

Her body complained when she tried to stand and she stretched her arms and legs to get them used to moving again. She rubbed her hands over her eyes, as if that would wipe the exhaustion from her face, then pulled on a pair of shorts and fixed up her shirt.

Feeling so weak and tired she wondered how she could even stand, the Second Child shuffled out of her room … and nearly tripped over the penguin lying fast asleep on the floor just outside the door.

Asuka scowled at him, gently poking his side with her foot. He stirred and got up sleepily, his yellow beak opening and closing in a yawn. Pen-Pen had his own box, but the penguin generally did as he pleased. Misato had often let him sleep with her and Asuka had done the same at Hikari's, though not actually in her bed. In his mind that probably made them his mates or something. The penguin followed on her heels as she walked to the kitchen.

Shinji was sitting at the table, nursing a glass of orange juice and already clad in his school uniform. He looked up when Asuka and Pen-Pen entered. "Good morning."

"Wark!" the penguin said.

"Yeah, whatever." Asuka brushed off his pleasantries with a hand. She had never been keen on manners, and certainly not when she wasn't feeling well. "Where's breakfast?"

Shinji pointed. Asuka saw a frying pan with scrambled eggs on top of the stove and a plate nearby holding some toast.

"Do you want me to get it for you?" he asked.

"No," Asuka growled, already padding towards the stove. "I'll get it. I'm not completely useless."

He seemed taken aback by that. "I … I didn't say you were."

"Well, I'm not. So stop thinking it."

"I wasn't-"

Asuka turned her head and shut him up with a glare.

* * *

"The information in the Angel's memory banks is corrupted beyond repair," Ritsuko commented, as Gendo Ikari leaned closer to the armored glass. "There will be very little we can learned from it, if anything at all."

On the other side, the biggest single piece of Unit-A's shattered core had been trussed up from the ceiling by huge cranes. It was a brown sphere showing a multitude of deep cracks spreading across its smooth surface like a spiderweb. Several portions were missing, leaving a gaping hole where Unit-02's progressive knife had gone in. Chinese characters stenciled on the side identified it as 'Test Core Alpha Mark 8'.

Given the sensitive nature of the materials Ritsuko had ordered the entire chamber hermetically sealed and contained a vacuum. No one was allowed inside. A small robot arm moved back and forth across the core's surface for scanning purposes.

"It is not a concern," the Commander said. "As long we can confirm the mutation of the code, we do not need anything else. I think we have plentiful evidence of the mutation, wouldn't you say?"

"The code did mutate," Ritsuko said. "The Angel was not Unit-A, but rather the programming that made it work. It explains our inability to confirm the wave pattern."

"You know as well as me that it was not an Angel," the Commander noted. He moved back and turned a stony gaze to Ritsuko.

"I am only using the term for the sake of clarity," she told him, annoyed that he would waste her time nitpicking something like that. "If I say it often enough perhaps the lies will be easier."

She could have sworn she saw him grin, but it must have been the light. "Yes," he said. "Perhaps."

You would know, Ritsuko thought. No one here is as big a liar as you. "Semantics aside, I would still like to investigate the process by which the mutation happened. I need data in order to predict the rate of the mutation and its severity."

"Unpredictability is inherent in any complex system," Ikari said. "We will have to make do."

Ritsuko leaned back from the glass. Her green eyes were as cool as the sterile air in the room around them. They both wore white cleans suits with rubber boots and surgical gloves to prevent contamination, making them seem almost alien.

"Those are some famous last words to live by," she said after a moment. "There is still too much that we don't know."

"MAGI should be able to compensate for the lack of data."

"To an extent, yes. But every case is unique. Without any sort of profile on the Chinese pilot, we cannot hope to ascertain her psychological condition, or even her physical condition. The most basic health parameters are all estimates based solely on my autopsy results."

Ritsuko had performed post-mortem examinations on Eva pilots before, but in those cases she at least had names to go with the bodies. This girl had been a complete mystery to her. She was young, obviously, and apparently healthy, and her height and weight were easy to determine. Her body was badly decomposed, and by the time Ritsuko had cut her out of her yellow-red plugsuit the smell grew so intense she needed to wear a mask. But what really got her attention was the girl's face.

She must have been pretty, once. In death her face had turned black and swollen, with deep narrow furrows running down from forehead to chin and wide open eyes. Ritsuko's first thought was to check her hands, where there would normally be skin residue under the nails, but the plugsuit she had worn made that unnecessary. Regardless, the fact that she had apparently tried to claw her own face off was enough proof she had been alive when her mind was contaminated.

The girl fought, Ritsuko remembered thinking as she looked at that face. She never stood a chance, but she still fought.

When the autopsy finished and Ritsuko learned everything she could from the body, she closed the girl up along with her belongings in a body bag and burned it. She passed her report on to Ikari, but chose to leave the name blank.

"You are right to be concerned." Ikari nodded slowly. "However, the living are more important than the dead. You will need to keep a close eye on Unit-02 and its pilot."

"It might prove difficult should we have contamination come into contact with Unit-02," Ritsuko said. "We have established a very delicate balance between the pilot and the Eva and any discrepancy could be disastrous. We already have a small but unaccountable divergence."

"Have you interviewed the Second Child about her experience?"

Ritsuko had done so twice, in fact. The first time occurred before Asuka was released from quarantine more than a week ago. Ritsuko had performed a thorough physical examination, including bloodwork, CT scans and EEG readings, and even a gynecological exam. Everything came back normal. There had apparently been no immediate ill effects from the contact, and the Second Child's psychological parameters were almost back to what they had been in Germany, with only minute but permissible deviations. Lieutenant Ibuki had kept an eye on her since then. When Asuka complained of a headache and 'something' she couldn't describe after the most recent sync test, Ritsuko had again interviewed her and repeated the examination. The results were much the same, though the girl's stress and hormone levels had increased noticeably.

But it was during that second interview, standing there in the nude while Ritsuko asked her question, that Asuka mentioned the tree.

Further analysis of Unit-02 revealed an increase in the signal discrepancy, but it was still far too minimal to produce noticeable psychosomatic effects. However, it was larger than it had been a week before and far enough from the baseline to allow MAGI to plot a progression for the deterioration of the signal. At the current rate it would take nearly a year to crash the synchrograph and render both the Eva unit and the pilot unusable. Asuka could not be told any of that, of course. She didn't need to know.

"Yes. She was confused, I think." And angry, Ritsuko added silently. "The effects are minimal. Biologically speaking, at least. Psychologically she seems to be coping, but you know how quickly that can change."

Ikari nodded. "Contamination is a risk we will have to take in exchange for a working Evangelion."

No surprise there, Ritsuko thought. Most scientists would be appalled. It was just another day at NERV, and another risk to ignore. But it wasn't her place to argue. "Speaking of the pilots, what do you want me to do about Rei?"

Ritsuko was sure that would get a reaction from him, but she was wrong.

"Let her be," Ikari replied, calm and emotionless as a statue. "Unit-00 will be decommissioned. Scrap it for parts if you need them. Rei has already got Adam inside of her. I will show her the way from now on."

Ritsuko raised an eyebrow, shocked. "You gave it to her?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation, no sign that he cared at all about her concern. Ritsuko didn't know why she expected any different from him.

Shock melted away into a kind of red anger in her chest, and she had to fight to keep it from entering her voice. "Without telling me?"

"Yes."

"Is that wise?"

He turned back to the window, looking out beyond the glass. "I have already revoked her security clearance for Terminal Dogma. As you say, we can't predict what will happen next. And she is our last hope. I may need her to be ready at a moment's notice."

Your last hope, Ritsuko corrected in her mind, seething. Not mine.

* * *

Boys and girls were always segregated during physical education. Their old school had both outside courts and a swimming pool, but it had also been much larger and was presently located in the exclusion zone—which meant that whatever hadn't been vaporized by Unit-00's self-destruct mechanism was buried under several feet of water. The new school—if it could really be called new anymore—only had an indoor gym with two courts—one for basketball, the boys' sport, and one for volleyball, the girls' sport.

The white lines on the smooth gray concrete that made up these courts were the national boundaries between the sexes, and the teachers saw to it that they weren't crossed. Sweaty, barely-clothed teenagers loaded with hormones were expected to be kept clear of one another by old geezers who had forgotten what it was like to be young.

Asuka thought it was stupid. The whole idea that students be required to exercise as part of receiving an education was simply ridiculous.

Thus, it was surprising that PE was close to being her favorite subject. If nothing else, it was a welcome break from boring classes that she was too smart for, taught by people whom she was smarter than. And, she had to admit, she liked the attention that she got while wearing the tight red bloomers and short-sleeved shirt that made up the gym uniform.

In their old school tournament basketball games had been lost because one of the players was too busy ogling her to notice the ball. Sometimes she had even pretended to flirt with them, just to make it interesting. Hikari, of course, had frowned on this, but it had never deterred her.

Hikari, as Class Representative, was default captain of one of the girls' volleyball teams. She wasn't all that good, but her title came with certain privileges. More often than not she would find a way to weasel out of playing and delegate to Asuka, who didn't mind being in charge as long as she got first pick of the other girls. Five-on-five meant some girls were left out, so the teams rotated after a number of sets except for the captains unless they chose to take themselves out for a break. Naturally, Asuka wanted the best players around her. Her attitude towards winning applied just as strongly here as it did in everything else she did.

She was an avid participant, a skilled player with obvious gifts, and often everyone stopped to watch her play-though the bloomers had something to do with that as well. But, as much as she liked the attention, it did have its drawbacks. Especially when she wanted to remain unnoticed and be left alone.

Such as right now.

After a single set, Asuka's head had been throbbing so badly it made her eyes water and she opted out. She sat on the bleachers and watched as Hikari served, an awkward sort of lob that barely made over the net.

The majority of the girls were clustered in a small group, chatting amongst themselves, boys and sports being the most prevailing topics. Further down the same bleachers, the boys were likewise clustered. Rei Ayanami sat roughly in the middle between the two groups, the single lone figure in this No-Man's Land, looking as dull as she always did.

Hikari might suck, but at least she tried; Rei never played.

And then there was Shinji, sitting with Kensuke, and grinning at some comment or joke Asuka was too far away to hear. They were lousy at basketball, which surprised absolutely no one. Shinji was lousy at almost anything that required physical coordination with the notable exception of piloting Unit-01.

But he looked like he was having fun-more than her, for sure.

The German girl pressed her lips together and frowned.

At least his Eva still feels right, she thought sourly. I can't sleep, I can't stop feeling like crap, and I can't do anything about it.

Shinji … Shinji didn't even know what she was talking out when she asked him. He might care for her, but he certainly didn't understand. He was too different and too stupid. Even if she tried to explain it he would just think she was crazy.

Asuka was still staring intently when Keiko Nagara dropped next to her on the bleacher, sweaty and panting heavily. "Do you mind if I sit with you?"

"Whatever." Under normal circumstances Asuka wouldn't be caught dead next to her, but she decided to let it go. Nagara was a dolt. The best thing to do was to ignore her.

"So what were you doing all by yourself?"

Asuka grumbled a reply so disinterestedly she was not sure what it was. Further down, Shinji and Kensuke were still laughing. She wanted to know what was so funny. Probably something vulgar—had to be with those two. Boys were such perverts.

"Well, you've been kinda quiet all day," Keiko said, leaning in over her shoulder. "You never sit out. There must be something important on your mind."

Asuka was getting annoyed. "Go away."

Keiko followed her gaze straight to the group of boys, and Shinji. "Oh, I bet you've been thinking about a boy," she teased with a smile. "Is that it?"

"What?" The German girl gave a little jump as her defense mechanism kicked in. She glared at Nagara. "No, I haven't!"

"Come on, who is it?" Keiko joked, smiling and jabbing her arm insistently. "Is it Ikari? He's cute, isn't he? I bet it's him! He said he cared for you, we all heard him. And you are living together again."

Asuka felt something twist inside of her, a dark and writhing mass close to the emptiness in her heart.

Was she so pathetic that even this louse could guess what she was thinking? Were her emotions that obvious? Was she so desperate for Shinji that everyone around her could tell?

And yet she couldn't stop looking. She couldn't stop the sudden rush of emotions. She clenched her teeth, a flush of anger rising to her cheeks.

Keiko knew she had her. She was smiling. "Asuka and Shinji, sitting beneath a tree, K-I-S-S-I—"

"Shut up!" Asuka sprang to her feet before the brunette could finish her song and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt. "I hate boys! I hate them! Now leave me alone or I swear I will hurt you!"

Surprise blossomed on Keiko's face like an explosion, her brown eyes large with terror. She froze in place. "W-what?"

Asuka drew back her fist. For a moment she fought the brutal urge to shove it into the girl's face with all her might. The surge of deep, personal hatred was matched only by the desire to escape the accusation of something she both knew was true and loathed.

"I-I didn't mean it!" Keiko rushed to say, recoiling in fear. Still tightly held in the redhead's grasp, the collar of her shirt stretched as far as it would go but not nearly far enough. "I'm sorry!"

But it was too late for apologies. Though Keiko had always been a nuisance to Asuka, hanging around her and craving the same attention she had garnered from their fellow classmates, she had seldom felt this kind of violent malice towards her. Bringing up Shinji like this and using him to tease her was unforgivable on every level.

Unlike other times, when Asuka had lashed out at Keiko Nagara simply because it was easy and because she needed to be put in her proper place, now she really wanted to hurt her—and then she wanted to hurt herself.

Realizing Asuka's intent even through her panic, Keiko brought up her hands and knees to hide from the incoming blows. "I was joking, honestly!" she cried in a breaking voice, eyes full of tears. "Please don't hit me!"

"Hey!" Asuka looked up and saw Miho Ishizawa standing over them, her hands planted firmly on her hips, her face set. "Leave her alone."

"Mind your own business, Longshanks!" Asuka barked, saliva running down the corner of her mouth.

"Better than being a gaijin." Miho tossed a sheet of straight black hair over her shoulder. She went right for the jugular. "Besides, I don't see what your problem is. Everyone already knows about you and Shinji Ikari. We all heard him say he cared about you. You don't have to be a bully just because you don't like people talking about your hubby."

As she glared at the other girl, Asuka pulled Keiko to her feet by her collar. If Miho thought standing up for the crybaby would force her to back down she had another thing coming. One way or another, Asuka was going to make Keiko pay.

"N-no, please, Asuka." Keiko shook her head helplessly, wrapping her hands around Asuka's wrist, her look pleading. "Please, I'm sorry."

The urge to pummel her fist into Keiko's face nagged insistently at her mind, but before she had a chance to act Asuka realized that the bustle of the girls around her had died out and was replaced with a stunned silence. Her eyes narrowed, she turned her head to the crowd and felt her chest tighten as she met their collective gaze.

Every girl on the bleachers was now watching her. Wide open eyes bored into her in shock and expectation, asking uncomfortable questions of her as if seeking out her secrets, her thoughts and emotions, fears and insecurities—as if they knew. Suddenly, Asuka felt more like a freak than she ever did before, more so even than her first year in college as a lonely, overachieving 11-year-old.

"So what's it gonna be, Red?" Miho prompted smugly, daring her to act.

It was a trap.

Beating the hell out of Keiko over Shinji would only confirm that Asuka did, in fact, have feelings for him. Answering Miho would do just the same. But how could she deny it, to them and to herself? They all saw how much it bothered her, and this would not be so unless she felt something, which she knew she did. The carefully constructed facade she had built among her peers since returning from the hospital was crumbling, revealing her for who she really was—that beneath the haughty outer shell they worshiped like an idol hid a tangle of emotions and weakness.

Asuka let go of Keiko, allowing her to drop back onto her seat. Her anger unabated but far too upset to do anything about it without completely losing control in front of everyone, she put them behind her and stormed towards the locker room.

Her head was pounding, harder and harder with each step. She ran into the locker room, then quickly shoved all her things back into her bag and left without changing.

* * *

Broken English was better than no English, and over the last twenty four hours it actually helped. Nakayima was good at being told what to do, and the Americans seemed perfectly capable when spoken to in a language they could more or less understand. It was only mid afternoon by the time they were ready to go.

Misato had been offered her own private quarters in the train carrying Unit-08 to Tokyo-3, but to accept the offer would mean wasting almost 6 hours in getting to her destination, not counting the time it would take to report in and pick up her car. In other words, far too long for her liking.

So instead she declined and went to hitch a ride with one of NERV's VTOL aircraft that had been pulling security duty from the New Yokosuka station. This vehicle would get her to Tokyo-3 in a little over an hour. She could then have a report completed in another hour, maybe two at the most, pick up her car and finally go home. With some luck she should be there by sundown, and maybe even in time to give Asuka a call with her decision.

She retrieved a gray flight helmet from the officer on duty and put it on, sliding the visor up so she could see. The pilot was already flipping switches by the time she pulled herself into the seat next to him and began strapping in, being careful not to tangle the assortment of safety belts around her legs, waist and shoulders.

The small cockpit was crowded with instruments, displays, and all kinds of switches. She could barely move without hitting something. A console ran lengthwise from the bulkhead behind the seats to the main control board in front. A joystick was sticking up between her legs. She tried not to touch it.

"You really should wear a flightsuit, Major Katsuragi," the pilot told her.

"It's fine, those things are horrible anyway." She did not remember introducing herself to him, but he could have known her. His visor shielded his eyes, making Misato feel strange that she could only see the lower half of his face.

Misato was sure her khaki shorts and red jacket must have been the oddest assortment of flying gear he had ever seen in his cockpit, or in any cockpit ever.

"This cabin is not heated," he told her, his thickly-gloved hands flicking switches and checking several assorted controls. "It will be cold. And the G-load-"

"You don't have to impress me." Misato smiled. "Just get me home."

The concern was not unfounded, but she would be fine as long as he didn't do any high-G maneuvers and he was under strict orders not to. As for the cold … Misato had been in Antarctica during Second Impact. That was cold.

"What's the ETA?" Misato asked as she finished with the last seat belt. Her body was now one with the aircraft; perhaps more accurately, one with the ejection seat.

"Fifty-two minutes," the pilot replied without looking at her. He reached up and pressed the communications microphone to his throat. "UN-VTOL-154-4, Yokozuka Central, what's the status of our take-off clearance, over?"

A few seconds later the main speakers in the cockpit awoke with a loud voice.

"Yokozuka Central, UN-154-4, you are clear for take-off on vector 6. Watch for traffic on your starboard side, over."

The pilot nodded. "Roger, over and out." He turned to Misato. "You ready, Major?"

She gave him a thumbs up. "Yeah. Let's go."

The aircraft whined as the pilot increased the throttle and, as soon as the vertical thrusters generated enough power for the craft to get off the ground, the airframe began to tremble and lift off the concrete tarmac. The pilot allowed the craft to hover just a few feet over the deck, checking systems with his left hand while gently nudging the control stick with his right. When he was done he increased the throttle to full, putting the craft in a steep climb skywards.

At 2,000 feet—confirmed by a quick glance at the nearest altimeter on the control console in front of her—Misato allowed herself to relax. With the flick of another switch and a push on the stick, the pilot switched to the horizontal flight mode.

The aircraft shuddered ominously, its jet engines rattling as they were pushed to the edge of their performance. Although some people saw these VTOL craft as reliable modes of transporting VIPs and other precious cargo, Misato was much fonder of the older, near-indestructible Black Hawks. VTOLs were basically new generation Ospreys, and strapping jets to a fundamentally unstable airframe did not make it safer. And while the high-end transport had cushy cabins, military models were utterly bare when it came to creature comforts.

At altitude it quickly became cold, but not very much. The sun coming in through the canopy kept the temperature tolerable. The shaking was something else, though. Any gust of wind or turbulence made the aircraft shudder from nose to tail. Metal groaned almost loud enough to be heard over the engines and every dip pushed Misato forcefully into the harness. After a particularly violent shake her left knee slid sideways and slammed hard against a bulkhead.

"Ouch!"

"Relax into it," the pilot said. "It'll hurt worse if you tense up. You can't fight the aircraft."

"I'm used to riding in the back." Misato fought a grimace of pain, rubbing her knee.

"There are no seats in the back of this tub."

"I know." Questioning the wisdom of giving up comfortable quarters on a train, Misato sank into her chair and closed her eyes, trying to relax as much as possible.

The last few days had been so hectic there was hardly time to think about anything besides the job at hand. Her conversation with Nakayima had left her with a strange sense of purpose. It couldn't have been easy for him. She was not used to men, specially military men, asking for help. And it had also reawakened the obligation she felt towards the children.

Asuka was probably sick of waiting for her by now. Hopefully Ritsuko had given her the message she left for her.

The aircraft began to tilt. Misato opened her eyes and saw the horizon at an angle. She reached up and lowered the helmet's sun visor to guard her sight from the daylight glare, all the while a single thought going through her head.

Soon she would be home.

* * *

"You have to talk to her!" Hikari repeated for the third time, her voice grave.

Shinji shook his head again. "What am I supposed to say?"

"Anything!" the Class Representative was almost yelling by this point, her brown eyes wide and freckled cheeks red. "Just make her feel better!"

The Third Child hesitated, fighting the knot in his throat and the twisting feeling in his stomach. "She'll just scream at me."

"You don't know that!"

Of course he did. He wasn't stupid.

"Yes, I do," Shinji replied, leaning forward in his chair so he could bury his head in his hands. "She will yell at me and tell me to leave her alone. Like she always does."

Hikari slammed her hand down on his desk. "Dammit, she's your friend, isn't she?"

He nodded. Asuka was a friend, and he wanted her to be more than that. Maybe. But nothing good would ever come from seeking her out when she was like this. He would just make it worse.

"So it's your duty, as a friend, to make her feel better," Hikari said. "You are the only one that can talk to her."

Nobody could talk to her, he almost yelled. The boy shook his head again, looking up and staring at Hikari with shaking eyes. "You are her friend too. And you were there."

Hikari looked like she was ready to slap him. "I wasn't there!"

It was not the first time she said that, either. According to what she told him she had been playing volleyball when Asuka and Keiko got into some kind of argument and nearly came to blows. When the Class Rep. found out what happened and gone after her, Asuka had already taken her things from the locker room and left. Hikari looked everywhere, going as far as alerting the teachers, then finally took Shinji aside, dragged him and Keiko Nagara into an unused classroom and filled him in.

Keiko was with them still, sitting on a chair nearby, her hair tied up in a disheveled ponytail and looking like she wanted to cry. She hadn't said much, other than trying to apologize or explain herself.

The three of them had changed back into their regular uniforms at Hikari's insistence. Something about school rules regarding gym uniforms outside the gym and not attracting attention to themselves. She wanted to keep the other students from finding out what had happened, thinking to spare Asuka some embarrassment, but that seemed like an impossible task at this point. They would all know before long.

And there was no telling where Asuka might have gone-if she was truly furious enough to run away from school she probably wouldn't have gone home. More than likely she was just wandering around hitting things and looking for someone to strangle.

Shinji's fingers absently brushed against his neck. He remembered how Asuka had once tried to squeeze the life out of him after he told her he hated her and that he wanted her to die, and he remembered that she had cried. He wondered what Keiko could have said to her to make her react with so much anger.

His gaze moved beyond the Class Rep., towards the brunette curled into a tight ball on the chair behind her. He knew better than anyone how unforgiving and violent Asuka could be, and he didn't mean to be upset with Keiko, but something like accusation must have flashed in his eyes because the moment she saw him tears began pouring down her face and started to weep.

"I didn't mean it … " Keiko whimpered, her voice breaking between sobs. She buried her face in her hands. "I'm sorry. I … I didn't mean it."

"Shinji, at least try," Hikari insisted, ignoring the other girl's outburst. "Please."

"You talk to her," Shinji whispered.

"It's not the same thing!" Hikari bellowed. Her expression, filled with concern, spoke more than a million words ever could, and certainly more than Shinji would ever be able to manage. "She will listen to you. She listened when you told her you cared, didn't she?"

Shinji suddenly felt worse. He knew that he cared about Asuka for a while now, though it was only recently that he had realized the depth of that feeling and what it might mean for them. To Asuka, Hikari was a confidant, a friend, and almost family—maybe more so than Misato or Shinji himself had been. But she didn't have the bond that Shinji did. She didn't have Eva. He did. More than anyone, he could understand and he should. Yet here he was, trying to run away.

Hikari would never resort to name calling, but Shinji thought she would have been justified to call him a coward. Because he was.

"Shinji, please talk to her," Hikari was begging now. She went and got her leather book bag from the desk where she had left it and produced a small plastic card which she then placed in front of Shinji. He looked at it, frowning. "That's my hall pass in case anyone stops you," she explained. "Go, now. I'll come up with some excuse for the teacher. He'll buy it, don't worry."

She really was desperate if she was willing to give him her pass and lie to the teacher. Prim and proper Hikari was not one to break the rules easily.

Tentatively, Shinji reached for the card, his hand as heavy as the feeling in his chest. "Where should I go?"

"Last time she was at the arcade," Hikari said. "Maybe check there. She won't go home. She knows that's the first place anyone would look. If all else fails call Major Katsuragi."

"Misato is on a trip," Shinji said, lowering his head as if somehow that were his fault.

Hikari was talking very fast now, taking charge. "Then call Section 2. If she's not home by nightfall make them go look for her. I'll take care of everything here and call you and we'll go looking together. But listen, if you find her, no matter how she gets, whatever you do you have to be there for her."

He said nothing to that.

"Shinji, you know better than anyone she isn't as strong as she pretends. Who knows what might be going through her head, what she might do. Something's wrong with her. I can tell. I don't know what happened between you before, but she was never the same, and now this-" she looked at Keiko, who was shaking and bawling like a baby.

Hikari stepped over to the crying girl, making her flinch as though she thought she was going to hit her. "I didn't … mean to …" Keiko sobbed. "I didn't …"

"I know," Hikari said softly. "It's okay." She sat next to Keiko, put an arm around her shoulders and looked expectantly at Shinji.

What else could he do? And even if she managed to find Asuka, what was he supposed to say to her? She was nearly impossible under normal circumstances, let alone when she had a temper or was upset. The last time they had an argument it had ended very badly and with both of them in tears. But could he really refuse to go to her because he was afraid? Should she need him and he were not there for her, how would he live with himself?

Shinji had none of the answers, but he knew doing anything would have been better than simply sitting there. He began to rise. "I'll call you."

"Thank you. You are a good friend, Shinji Ikari." Hikari tried to encourage him with a smile. "Asuka is lucky to have you."

Oddly, he felt just the opposite. If Asuka were truly lucky she would have someone who could actually help her and make her happy. Instead she was stuck with him.

* * *

Even after her recent promotion Second Lieutenant Miko Mineguno had never even met Commander Gendo Ikari face to face, like most other NERV technicians who made their living by making sure that the small things worked and the big things were looked after. Her duty was to see to the maintenance of the Evangelions and all pertinent equipment. As this assignment included the main cage, which had been demolished by the last Angel, she seldom had time anymore to do anything but work.

The Evangelions tended to be romanticized among most of the technical crews that worked on them. Dedicated teams were usually assigned to a particular Eva, and so bonds were created between these and the unit they worked on. They adopted them, sort of, and bragged about who was best. Competition was good to keep men and women who often ran on nothing but adrenaline and a sense of duty going.

This bond extended to the pilots as well. When Shinji Ikari had been swallowed up by his Eva, his crew spent an awful month trying to keep each others' spirits up. When Asuka Langley had ended up in the Cranial Nerve Ward, hers filled a card with well-wishes and words of comfort. When they thought Rei Ayanami had died, hers cried.

Presently, there were three main technical teams on rotation: Alpha was assigned to Unit-01, Bravo to Unit-00, and Delta to Unit-02. These teams were responsible for active combat operations, and generally garnered all the glory of a successful battle. They were the most highly-trained and specialized of all the staff except for the command crews, those lucky few that sat in the control deck with the likes of Misato Katsuragi, Doctor Akagi, and even the Commander himself.

Miko worked the maintenance shift. Barring extreme situations, such as the recent outside interdiction which had required extra staff, they were the people responsible for cleaning up the mess. If you needed to remove a severed arm from the Geo-Front, you called maintenance. If you needed to flush out all the blood or chunks of Angel, you called maintenance. If you needed someone to brush Unit-01's teeth or polish Unit-02's armor, you called maintenance.

It was unglamorous work, and yet, still terribly vital. The hours were long, the pay was lousy, the lack of recognition frustrating. But seeing those children do what they did made it all worth it. They were the heroes. They were the ones everyone looked up to. Protected.

But through all that, maintenance remained largely anonymous. Which only made Miko all the more surprised when the Commander had summoned her by name to his office.

"Lieutenant Mineguno?" Commander Ikari said, not lifting his gaze from the document he was reading. The sight of him sitting behind his desk filled her with an apprehension that was only heightened by the dramatic, intimidating appearance of his office.

"Sir?" the blonde Lieutenant replied, stiffening her posture. Had her ankles been any closer together and her arms held any more rigidly by her side, she would have toppled over like a tree.

"We have not met, have we?"

"No, sir." Miko replied briskly. Not only that, she had never in his office either; she had to ask directions on how to get there. The gloom was oppressive, the air stale yet heavy, and the strange diagram scrawled by thin black lines on the floor strangely ominous.

"That is a shame," Ikari replied, turning a page. "I presume you were not told why you were summoned."

"No, sir."

He paused. "There is a matter that requires your immediate attention."

"Sir?" Miko raised an eyebrow, her heartbeat increasing. "If it's the cooling linkage system, we are aware of the problem. The o-ring seals don't fit properly. We can't fix them; we'll have to have them re-manufactured."

"This has nothing to do with your usual duties," Ikari said. "My reasons for having you here are much more important."

Miko nodded. "I understand."

"No, I don't think that you do. This is a matter of the utmost priority. It concerns the safety and future of NERV, Japan and potentially the human race."

Miko did not like the sound of that. Everything they did would fit that description, but it never got her a trip to the Commander's office before. And he wasn't a man to waste his time on trifling issues such as maintenance. Something else was going on here, even if she had no idea what.

"You have a ward."

It was not a question. Miko's thoughts stopped, and her mouth suddenly felt as dry as pure sand. It hurt to speak. "Y-yes, sir."

The Commander closed the file. The sound of the pages falling shut upon one another seemed so loud as to be deafening. He settled back in his chair, bringing his gloved hands in front of his face, fingers interlaced. The harsh glimmer from his thick glasses shielded his eyes. He was like a statue carved out of granite, unmovable, unknowable, inhuman.

And he was asking about … why? She had never set foot on the Geo-Front, and barely knew what Miko did for a living. What could he possibly want with her?

* * *

So much for being a hero.

After a long, frustrating search, Shinji returned to the apartment late that afternoon. Finally stopping before their door, he let out a long sigh. But as he went to swipe his key card, he realized that the apartment door was not actually locked. Shinji felt his heart starting to race. Misato should still be out; the only other person with a key was...

Shinji took a deep breath and stepped in. Sure enough, there was a pair of red-trimmed sneakers hastily left lying around in the hall.

He found Asuka on the balcony, leaning her elbows on the concrete rail, her head sunken low between her shoulders. She was still dressed in her gym clothes, but they were wrinkled and disheveled. Her shirt had been pulled out and hung loose, its hem reaching down almost to the leg bands of her bloomers.

With her back to him, she failed to notice he was there. Shinji dumped his book bag in the living room and headed outside, slipping the glass door silently aside and stepping with great care. His heart was pounding wildly in his chest, almost painfully so, as he steeled himself for the rage that he was sure would be coming his way. The sky had begun to turn a bright orange, like an amber tide washing off the blue. The afternoon sun lingered near the horizon, casting long, deep shadows on everything it touched and lighting the landscape in an orange-yellow hue.

Shinji had no idea what to say, but he knew that he had to say something. He had to find a way to make Asuka feel better, even if it resulted in her yelling at him. He would much rather avoid her when she was like this. He would rather run away.

And yet, one step after another, he moved closer.

"What do you want?" Asuka asked harshly when he was a few feet from her. She turned her head slightly, causing locks of her long golden-red hair to rustle in the wind.

Shinji stopped immediately and swallowed awkwardly. "Hikari … she told me about what happened."

"Leave me alone," Asuka hissed, her voice dangerously lowered to that level which indicated he'd better do what she said. And Shinji had half a mind to do just that.

Then, he noticed something. Her elbows were propped up on the top of the concrete rail, hands grazing the sides of her head so that her fingers disappeared into her mane up to her knuckles, which were black and covered in what looked like dried-up blood.

His chest tightened, a gasp escaping his lips. "You're hurt."

He came closer, slowly, like a man approaching a wounded animal that would lash out at the tiniest sign of danger. Asuka would lash out, too, violently. But the sight of her blood filled him with courage born out of compassion.

"What the hell does it matter to you?" she told him hoarsely. "I'm always hurt."

It broke his heart to hear her say that, more so because it seemed to be true, and there never seemed to be anything that he could do about it. But scraped knuckles, he could fix.

"Let me see..." Shinji slowly reached out a hand.

"Screw you!" Asuka jerked away.

What came next was a whirlwind of movement. Not wanting her to get away and possibly do more harm to herself, Shinji threw out his hand and caught her by the wrist. Asuka twisted on her heels, making him force her hand back but also pulling him towards her. For a second he lost his balance and stumbled into her mid-spin. Asuka thrust her body backwards, shoving him between her and the concrete rail.

Shinji grunted as the air was knocked out of his lungs, releasing Asuka's wrist and clutching his side. Asuka spun again, facing him, but as she began to back away, her left foot hit the edge of a plastic deck chair.

There was no time to react; Asuka stumbled and fell to the floor with a loud noise, landing on her side. Shinji froze, his knees about ready to buckle, desperately trying to catch his breath. As Asuka sat up and lifted her head to glare at him, her face was a grimace of pain, her blue eyes furious. Her knuckles were bleeding worse than before.

"Idiot!" she screamed. "You stupid, worthless ..." and then her voice shattered. Her whole slender body seemed to curl on itself as she raised a hand to cover her face. "I … I hate … "

You, Shinji finished for her.

It felt like that night all over again-the night when he told her he hated her. But it wasn't. He had learned from that mistake, from the heartache and sorrow that had led him first to alienate her and then risk his life for her. It took all the courage that he could muster, but in the end he couldn't—and wouldn't—leave her alone, and he wouldn't say the words no matter how much she hurt him.

His side was on fire. Worse, the pain in his chest, much dulled since he had suffered the wound in the fight with the Angel, was now a sharp sliver of glass somewhere between his lungs.

Shinji approached her again, slowly, dropping to his knees and reaching gently for her bleeding hand. She stifled a sob, rubbing her eyes. "I don't want your pity," she said weakly.

Despite her effort, he could clearly see the wet trails the tears had left on her flustered cheeks. Her eyes were heavy and lidded, and so blue they could have been sapphires.

"It's not pity." He took her hand in his, her fingers brushing on his palm with a feathery touch. "Please, I just…I just want to make you feel better."

"You can't," Asuka whispered, lowering her head. "No one can. You don't even understand."

Shinji looked down at her hand, mostly because he did not think he could meet her eyes and hear her say something like that. The knuckles were a real mess. The skin was badly scraped in several places, raw and bleeding. The parts where there was no blood were a dark purple; there was swelling everywhere—she hadn't just punched something, she'd hit something very solid repeatedly.

Without thinking, he extended his finger and gently traced it over her hand. His fingertip hovered barely above her skin, as if afraid to hurt her with his touch, but he could distinctly feel the pulsating heat of her wound burn against it.

He was no expert, but he didn't need to be. "We're gonna have to clean this or it could get infected."

Asuka brooded in silence, her tears having abated and replaced by something that resembled anger. Then, after a long moment, she seemed to give up and allowed her head to sink even deeper between her sagging shoulders.

"I hate feeling like this," she whispered. "I hate not wanting to be alone. I hate wanting for someone to care. I hate thinking about it. I hate thinking about you. And I hate this feeling."

Shinji didn't know how to react to that. Guilt ate at him. It was because of him, which he'd known from the start, among other things. Nothing about her was really ever that simple. Yet the utterly hopeless way she said surprised him, as if she were resigned to it.

In his mind, the fact that he cared about her made it okay for her to care about him.

"Y-you think about me?" He tried to sound surprised, but his voice quivered. His let his fingers intertwine with hers, gently cradling her hand like someone would do a wounded bird.

He saw her take a breath, saw her brow wrinkle. Then he saw her looking down at their joined hands.

"Yeah," Asuka admitted, and the words twisted her mouth in distaste. "A lot. I'm really pathetic, aren't I?" She let out a soft chuckle, but it was so sickly that it sounded more like a sob.

"I … I don't think it's pathetic," Shinji said. "I think about you, too."

Sometimes not in a very decent way. That usually had more to do with the things she wore and the fact that she was pretty, and mostly because he couldn't help it. But he also thought about her as someone he wanted to care for, to comfort, to grow close to. He thought of her as a friend, and if he had his way, he would like to think of her as more than that.

He wondered how Asuka thought of him, and why she felt like she hated it or why she needed to hate it. It couldn't have been that bad. Then again …

"I'm not you," Asuka told him. "There's a difference between you and me."

"Yeah, you are stronger—"

Asuka didn't let him finish. "Are you stupid?" she spat, gesturing at herself in an angry manner. "Look at me. Do I look strong?"

As far as Shinji was concerned looking strong had nothing to do with actually being strong. Asuka herself was proof: barely a hundred pounds, in her Eva she could take a missile to the face and keep going. And she had taken a lot worse.

"You are," Shinji said as firmly as he could. "You are stronger than me. I can't make you believe that, but I know it. I think you know it too. You are always the first into battle. You are never afraid."

Asuka raised her head and glared at him. "And I always failed, remember?"

"You … shouldn't think that way."

"So how should I think?" Asuka snapped. "Why don't you tell me, Third Child?"

"I don't know," Shinji said, feeling stupid. "But there's more to it than that. I used to think that I piloted Eva for the praises of others. I used to think that I was a horrible person and that Eva was a monster, but—"

She looked like she wanted to slap him. "We are different! You always did it for others, but I pilot only for myself. You have a choice when you pilot. I pilot because I have nothing else. There's is nothing else for me in the world."

Only because you never had anything else, Shinji thought. He had piloted Eva for a year, and suffered great for it. Asuka had done it since she was little.

"Don't say that," he said softly. "Eva isn't everything."

"It is for me," Asuka said. "Without Eva I'm nothing. If I can't pilot Eva, they'll ignore me and push me aside, like a piece of trash. They already did that once. You did it, too. And it makes me feel horrible and discarded and worthless…" she looked away, "...just like Mama used to. And Kaji. And you."

Shinji hesitated. He could feel the pain in her voice. Suddenly, their chat the day before took on a new relevance. "Like your mother?"

"I pilot Eva because it's what makes me special. But more than anything else, I wanted to do it for me. To make her look at me again. But the day I became I pilot she …" Asuka began shaking her head. "She was … she was gone. She didn't need me."

"But I need you."

The words, spoken out of the blue, made Asuka stop for a second. She stared at him, then lowered her head again.

"No. You are the great Shinji Ikari. You don't need me. You never lose. You were only there to show off. To make me look inferior. To humiliate me and make me feel like crap." Her voice rose sharply. She pressed an open hand against her chest. "You were never there when … when I needed you!"

It was a sad truth. Shinji remembered the pain of hearing her scream as her mind was defiled in a beam of blazing light. But the heady events of those days had overwhelmed him. Even had she been willing to let him get closer, he doubted that he could have gotten over his own fear.

Then Ayanami died and came back, but she wasn't Ayanami anymore. Then Kaworu …

And in the midst of all that, Asuka had been left to suffer alone.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it.

"Don't pretend like you care!" Asuka replied almost hysterically. "You don't have the right. Where the hell were you when that thing…raped my mind? You can't understand. You don't. You never have. You don't even know why it's empty."

Shinji knew that he did understand. Their pain was the same, deep inside. But how could he tell her when all the words seemed empty and meaningless? How could he reach her so far down in despair?

"After I lost my mother, for as long as I can remember, I lived for nothing." He struggled to keep his voice even. "It was simply…not dying. Until I came here, and then I had Eva. I had Misato and Rei. And I had you."

Asuka shook her head. "It's different."

"It's not," Shinji replied, focusing on her bright blue eyes, now bloodshot and teary but no less beautiful to him. His voice was shaking. He was going to cry. "It's really not, Asuka. Our pain—this pain," he tapped a palm over his heart, "is the same."

"How would you know what my pain is like?"

Slowly, Shinji reached out and touched her shoulder, hesitantly and gently, "If you don't think I know ... I want to. I want to understand. Maybe … maybe enough to comfort you."

"I don't want your comfort!" the redhead snapped. She turned away from him, barely holding back more tears.

"Asuka… please."

For the German girl all the emotions suddenly seemed to mix in one melting pot until she no longer appeared to know what she felt. She shook her head, and Shinji saw the pride and anger that were such important parts of her personality vanish and be replaced by something else. The way he was talking to her plainly touched her on a deeper level than she would have liked.

"You don't know," Asuka murmured, her eyes so misty the appeared to glimmer. "How can you? You are just an idiot."

Shinji felt his own bitter tears running down his cheeks. "I want to help you," he whimpered. "Tell me what I can do."

"You can't do anything." Asuka dropped her head and sobbed quietly, struggling to keep herself from breaking down completely.

His vision blurred, Shinji squeezed her shoulder as if he needed to convince himself she was still there. "Please, Asuka."

He waited for her, and it seemed like an eternity, but then …

"Promise me." Her voice was barely audible as she drew closer to him. "Promise that you won't hurt me. Never. No matter what happens. No matter what I say or what I do. Promise you won't."

How could anyone promise that? Even if he never intended to hurt her, he could not promise her—or himself for that matter—that he never would. It would be a lie, and maybe worse if he failed to keep it. Broken promises always hurt more than lies. He learned that painful lesson from Misato.

She knows I can't, Shinji though, despairing. I said I would help her, but I can't. She's was right.

"Do it!" Asuka grabbed his arm and shook him violently. Her other hand, the one he was still holding, squeezed tightly enough to hurt. "Or I will hate you!"

Shinji had no choice.

"I promise."

Gently, Asuka wrapped her free arm around him. Shinji followed her lead, combing through her long hair as his arm went behind her shoulders. His hand trembled, pressed against her back, but he had lost control and allowed instinct to take over. He drew her to him until their tear-streaked faces were only inches away.

He could feel her breathing, just as he knew she could feel his, and her heart.

Asuka closed the remaining distance on her own, her warm, flushed cheek brushing lightly against his as she laid her head on his shoulder. When she didn't say anything, Shinji decided that he shouldn't either and just held her more tightly.

* * *

The door was open when she swiped her key.

"I'm home!" Misato called out and limped into the apartment. There was no answer. She moved into the kitchen, flicking the light on with a finger and slinging her backpack on the table. A pair of sneakers lay discarded in the hall-girl's shoes. "Shinji?"

Still no answer.

If he'd brought a girl home he might be hiding in his room, doing what teenagers his age did with girls, but she knew he had to be here somewhere. The door was open and only three people had keys. She decided to give him some privacy. He had earned that much.

The pain on her swollen knee was getting worse. A black bruise had already taken hold, and she would need to get some ice on it soon. She hadn't felt this sore since her last all-nighter with Kaji.

That was a good sore, though, she thought.

Crossing the living room on the way to her room, she noticed the balcony door was open as well. That lock was on the inside. Anybody on the outside would have to break the glass to get in. She moved closer, carefully, just in case. Then she saw them.

Her eyes went wide, and for a brief she refused to believe what she was seeing. Somehow she knew it couldn't be possible; that it was more likely for Shinji to pick up a girl in school than this. But then, taking stock of all possible options, she decided that the image before her must be real. Standing stock-still in the middle of the living room, she really was watching Shinji and Asuka share a tearful hug.

Never mind that the redhead had apparently moved back without actually receiving permission first. She really should have expected that from Asuka if she wanted it badly enough. Neither patience nor doing as she was told were in her character, though these traits were not among the reasons for wanting to avoid springing her on Shinji.

And yet there they were.

Misato's maternal instincts nagged her that she had to do something about this, that she had to go out there and break them apart and lecture them. But lecture them about what?

The relationship between the two pilots was complicated enough without her butting in, and if they wanted to find whatever it was that they were looking for in each other's arms, then it should be fine with her. Wasn't this what she wanted for them? After talking to Ritsuko about Asuka's happiness, what right did she have to intervene? None at all, she supposed.

And then, as the original surge of worry subsided, a new sense of relief came over her. As Evangelion pilots, Shinji and Asuka had always been alone. Their unique circumstances and the experiences they had gone through prevented anyone, even Misato, from getting too close or truly understanding what they felt. Maybe now they could be alone together.

Which wasn't lonely at all.

Her obligations to them as surrogate parent superseded those as their commanding officer. Misato decided to remain neutral.

"Wark!"

"Uh?" Misato turned as soon as she heard the familiar call, thinking that now she was hearing things. "Pen-Pen?"

The overly-excited bird almost flew to her and wrapped himself around her leg. Misato reached down and took him in her arms like a mother cradling a baby. She straightened up, cuddling Pen-Pen against her chest, his face nestled between her breasts. "Did you miss me?"

"Wark, wark!"

Her smiled broadened, scratching the rubbery feathers at the base of his neck. "I missed you too."

Pen-Pen wriggled in her arms, shifting his position so he could look out through the balcony door. The Major turned her gaze to follow, although she already knew what he was looking at. His long beak was as good as a flashing arrow. The teenagers remained completely oblivious to their presence.

"What do you think?" Misato asked the penguin, quietly. "Do we leave them alone?"

Pen-Pen shook his head, feathers scratching her gently.

"Oh, you are such a peep."

* * *

Keiko Nagara lived in an apartment in Tokyo-3's eastern suburbs, which she shared with her guardian. The place was a cramped two-bedroom flat with a kitchen and living room separated by an accordion door and a tiny bathroom down a short hallway, but even though it was rather small by some standards, she liked it. There was a homeliness to it that appealed to her sense of quiet.

Her guardian had left her a note on the fridge saying that she would be coming home tonight, or maybe it was the same note from the day before. Regardless, Keiko would have the place to herself, as she often did these days. She had grown used to her guardian's odd schedule and was no longer bothered by it, just as she was no longer bothered by the fact that her guardian never cooked and never seemed to have time for her. At first that had been annoying, but now it didn't matter. Once as close as sisters, now nearly strangers living together.

It had been a bad day. And she felt just as bad; dirty. The tears had stopped, but the guilt and shame remained.

There would be no hanging out with Asuka anymore. Not that they had ever been friends or anything, but ever since she returned from the hospital many girls had quickly gathered around her. Even rumors that she had been somehow damaged during a combat mission didn't discourage them. She was just that popular, that smart, and that beautiful. She always got the most attention, and naturally others wanted to share that by being seen with or close to her.

Keiko was no different and, in fact, more desperate to be acknowledged. Being ignored at home was bad enough.

But despite making repeated attempts to befriend the redheaded idol she got nothing to show for them. Things went wrong from the start—she spilled something on her uniform, a cardinal sin in the schoolyard. Other girls would have laughed if not for the utterly murderous look on Asuka's face. To this day Keiko was sure the only thing that kept her from being slapped out of her senses was their proximity to Hikari. That, however, hadn't stopped Asuka from yelling at her until she cried.

From then on it was no secret to anyone Asuka regarded her as a crybaby. It was practically her new name. Yet because everyone hung out with her the only alternative for Keiko was to be by herself. So she put up with it, trying to pretend it didn't bother and laughing about it. Still, no matter the abuse, Keiko honestly wished that she could be more like the redhead: haughty, outgoing and relentlessly determined.

That Asuka could have any boy she wanted made her reaction to being teased about one all the more shocking. And over Shinji Ikari, no less. Yes, he had said that he cared about her but no one believed that the feeling was mutual. Asuka liking Shinji was as unlikely as snow in Tokyo-3. Both were Eva pilots, but that was about everything they had in common.

Obviously there was more to their relationship than everyone thought. Perhaps a crush, maybe love—who knew what bonds their battles together with these terrifying creatures called Angels had formed?

And if it was the latter, Keiko would always regret that she had teased her about it. Nobody ought to have those feelings thrown in their face like that. It was such a stupid thing to do. She had just wanted to be friendly, maybe show that she was more than a crybaby, that she could be one of the girls.

Yeah, nice going, Keiko chided herself. Now she really, really hated her for sure.

Wanting to clean off the grime of the day, emotional and otherwise, she stepped into the bathroom for a quick shower and changed into a loose gown with a flowery pattern. As she tied her long brunette hair into a ponytail, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She might not be Asuka-pretty, but she had never believed she was ugly. Her features were open and rounded, very delicate-looking. Her body was slender, though maybe not as developed as she would like.

But without much to distinguish her from the crowd, she was as mundane as mundane got. Even more reason to envy the school's resident redheaded firebrand.

Keiko sighed, watching herself deflate in the mirror. She left the bathroom feeling, if anything, worse than before.

Her room was the smaller of the pair in the apartment. She didn't mind this. It was cozy and quiet. The brunette did what she could to try to keep it neat. That in itself seemed like a full-time job.

She laid on her bed and stared at the top of her nightstand where she had set the picture of her mother. The old picture had been taken a few years back and showed a woman with long brown hair and a lab coat holding two girls, a blonde teenager and a considerably younger brunette. It was signed 'I love you.'

Keiko took the picture and brought it close to her. She ran a finger over the woman's face and over the signature.

"I really screwed up today," she murmured. "I wish I could talk to you."

The electronic ring of the doorbell made her sit up. For a minute she considered not bothering. Finally, putting down the picture, she rolled her body out of bed and went to see who it was.

There were two men standing on the other side of the door, wearing dark sunglasses and black suits and not looking very friendly. Compared to their burly frames, she was positively diminutive. They towered over her like pillars and filled her with dread. She should have stayed in bed. "Can I help you?" she managed to not sound scared.

The man on the right spoke, reaching a hand into his jacket pocket. "Are you Keiko Nagara?"

Keiko panicked. She stepped back in a rush, slamming her palm on the door control button causing it to slide quickly shut. She turned, ready to run for the telephone and hopefully call for help.

The bell rang again, and a muffled voice called out through the door. "Miss Nagara, please. We are from NERV's Section 2. We are not here to harm you."

"Prove it!" she screamed.

"I'll show you my ID, then." How that might be possible while she was cowering in a corner and they were on the other side of a locked door didn't occur to her. The answer came a moment later as a black rectangle about the same size as her own school ID fell from the mail slit at the bottom of the door.

Against her fear and better judgment, Keiko inched forwards, breaking out in goosebumps as she bent over to pick of the plastic card. It was indeed from NERV. It was a different color than Miko's, which was white, but it carried the same holographic watermark on it. Those, however, could be faked.

"I still don't believe you." She rubbed the ID nervously between her fingers, then took a bite at it like she'd seen with gold coins.

Then she realized she had no idea why people did that.

"Lieutenant Mineguno agreed to send us," the man on the other side of the door said. "Should you call her, she will confirm who we are. We will wait outside if you wish."

"Yeah, you do that."

Keiko ran for the phone.

* * *

"Sometimes I think life is not worth that kind of pain," Shinji said as Misato pushed a hot cup of tea in front of him. He had been sitting in the wooden chair with his knees curled up to his chest for what felt like hours. The emotional fatigue had taken its toll. He felt was absolutely exhausted.

The tea was cinnamon, and good. Even Misato could heat water apparently. He drank it slowly.

"Life is pain, you know," Misato replied, taking a seat next to him, a cup of coffee in her hand. "I hope I don't sound too much like Ritsuko, but without pain, there is no life. It's a confirmation of your existence."

The air in the kitchen was hot, the light yellow. Misato had changed into her usual tube-top and shorts combo, but Shinji was still in his school uniform. Asuka had gone off to bed, though it was much earlier than her normal bedtime. He had a feeling that she just wanted to be on her own for a while, and she was likely even more worn out than he was. It had taken only a moment to clean her wounds with some antiseptic and a cotton swab; Asuka had complained constantly about the sting, and he had repeatedly apologized for it. It reminded him of when he had been younger and had scraped his knees, and how his aunt would always tend to him.

Regardless of age, it was an act of caring. And Asuka had not asked him to stop.

Just like Misato had not asked him to talk about it. He had only realized that she was home after Asuka had gone to bed and the older woman emerged from her room. By then, he was sitting quietly by himself at the table, just as he was now. She had moved around him, making coffee, offering him tea. Pen-Pen had trailed at her heels, doing his best impersonation of a dog.

She hadn't asked a thing, but he knew that she was there to listen if he needed it. He did.

"I didn't know she would react like that," Shinji whispered. He focused his eyes on the Major's slender form as she took a sip from her cup. "I didn't … "

"She's been keeping all that inside of her for a very long time, I'd imagine," she said in her most tender voice. "She never has been the outgoing sort. Not with her feelings. I guess she was so hurt that all she could do was build a wall around her heart."

"But why?" Shinji said, confused. "Wouldn't acting the way she does drive people away?"

"Maybe that's the point. Humans hide from the pain by pretending to be something they are not. Because pain is only found when something or someone you care for is lost to you. If you care for nothing, you think that you will have no pain."

He held the cup up to his lips and stared at the surface, feeling the heat of the liquid inside warm his hands and face. "I never knew how she felt about her mother. I heard her cry in her sleep once, but I never thought much about it."

He had been attempting to kiss her at the time, too. He left that part out.

"You can relate to her that way, can't you?"

Shinji could, although he was not eager to relive that kind of trauma. Losing his own mother was bad enough, and he could very well imagine what it was for Asuka. He had at least found some comfort in his Eva. He thought Asuka had as well, but now he wasn't sure.

"I promised her that I would never hurt her," he said suddenly, remembering. "I don't know if I can keep that promise. She made me. I didn't know what else to do."

"Maybe you can't, but you can try." She set her cup down. "You know, last week she asked me if you could come back. She didn't want me to tell you, so keep that a secret. But it was important to her. I didn't want to make that decision without you so I asked if you missed her-"

"I lied," Shinji blurted out before she could finish.

Misato gave him a sad look. "I know. I know you missed her, and I know why you couldn't tell me. It's never easy missing the people you care about. It must have been hard on you."

"It's harder on her." Shinji closed his eyes.

He felt Misato move, heard the rustle of skin and cloth as she rose from the chair. Then he felt her hand on his knee.

"You were there for her, though, that's gotta count for something," she said, so quietly it was barely a whisper. Yet the depth of her caring was obvious and welcome.

When he failed to react to her touch, she added, "It's been a bad day for everyone. Don't feel like you have to worry about homework tonight. You've earned a little break."

Shinji decided that he was too weary to do much of anything. He wanted to go to bed.

Taking a last sip of his tea, he placed the cup on the table and slowly climbed off the chair. His feet dragged when he moved them, and his whole body felt heavy. It was an effort just to hold up his head. Misato watched him go, and he was almost to the living room doorway before she called out to him again.

"I'm proud of you. I think Asuka would be proud too."

Shinji could not tell her how much those words meant to him, nor the weight of responsibility they placed on his shoulders. Because he had made Asuka a promise-one he would do anything to keep.

* * *

The screen flickered for a moment before the image was brought into focus. It showed a dark room surrounded by armored panels, a gray concrete, steel beams, and a set of wide observation windows in the far wall that mimicked the testing control room found in Central Dogma. The fact that it wasn't made the similarity all the more surreal.

Inside the room the only light was provided by a bank of computer screens arranged in two rows. The silhouettes of several people could also be seen as black shadows dancing in front of the windows, but many other details were lost to the camera. Beyond the windows lay a poorly-lit haze that trailed off into an inky blackness.

In the upper-right corner, a display read: "First Activation Experiment", followed by a line of Chinese characters and a clock which showed the time since the recording had started: 00:21:45

A voice spoke in Chinese, translated into Japanese subtitles by MAGI. "The first barrier has been cleared."

"All parameters for the exercise have been met," a second voice said. The computer screens were too far away to distinguish what they displayed, but they flashed mostly hues of green, indicating that everything was in order.

"Contact signals are following the projected path for the fractal curve," a third voice said.

The first voice came back after almost a full three minutes of silence. "Initial disruptions detected in the path." Red details were beginning to appear on the computer screens.

"Containment procedures engaged."

Shortly afterward there was a loud noise, the tell-tale groan of rending metal. The alarms in the room went off and plunged everything into red light and chaos. The silhouetted figures moved frantically about. "The disruption is spreading!"

"The path's integrity has been compromised!"

"Anomalies in the curve can't be contained!" The computer screens now flashed completely red. Aside from the glow of the distant windows it was the only color in the image.

The voices grew strained, fear creeping into the words.

"Containment procedures are not functioning!"

"Backflow has been detected on all circuits!"

"Abort! Cut all power!"

"It's moving on its own!"

Then the P.A. system was activated. A mechanical voice called, "All personnel evacuate to their designated shelters."

"It's corrupting the Unit!"

"All personnel evacuate to their designated shelters."

A loud noise enveloped the room and something on the opposite side of the windows moved. The far wall bulged inwards, as if a giant fist had hit it. The armored glass shattered.

"We can't contain it!"

At 00:29:14 the feed from the camera died. The screen was replaced with the NERV fig leave. As the screen rolled up and light slowly returned to the small theater, Ritsuko could not shake the chilling coldness out of her body. She knew very well that could have been them.

Leaving her place at the projector, she approached the front, her long lab coat trailing behind her, hands in her pockets to keep them from trembling in the cold.

Fuyutsuki remained silent for a moment, leaning forward in his chair. "Very interesting."

"It would seem they tried to send it out," Ritsuko explained, facing him. The empty theater was eerily quiet. "A warning or a call for help, who knows. By then, it had already taken complete control of their communications. Somehow, this," she tilted her head towards where the screen had been, "was recorded within the core's internal data cache."

"Can we be sure it was never broadcast?"

"That would be my supposition. Although I think a more interesting question would be how it wound up inside the core; was it accidental?"

Fuyutsuki considered. "Um, free will does have its nuances."

That was not what Ritsuko wanted to hear. Free will required a will, and a will required sentience on a complex scale. "It might have been an accident," she said. "But if it was not, then we need to ask ourselves why this is here. The answer is simply that we don't know. Assuming, as you say, free will, why would it keep this?"

Fuyutsuki's brow wrinkled even more than than it already was. He stared firmly ahead, as if he could still see something there. "A souvenir, perhaps."

"Perhaps," Ritsuko said. Now that was a scary thought. Angels were single-minded marvels of alternative evolution, but they weren't hunters, and they didn't keep trophies. "I don't think we even want to consider that possibility."

"No, but we must," he replied. "Has anyone else seen this?"

"Only the two of us," Ritsuko replied. "Commander Ikari was supposed to, but he seems to be busy at the moment."

"The Commander considers the issue closed. Unit-A has been disposed of, after all."

Ritsuko sighed, her shoulders sagging as she failed to hide her disappointment. "You too?"

Far from reproaching her breach of protocol, the Sub-Commander seemed amused. "You sound like a doctorate student who just learned their prized paper failed to score the highest marks." He regarded her warmly. "You look like one, as well. When was the last time you went home?"

"Weeks, months, I don't recall." As far as she was concerned, she no longer had a home. She lived underground, inside the base. After being released from detention, she had returned to her apartment one time; upon finding that her cats had all starved to death in her absence, she had not gone back.

Ironic creatures, cats. So proud and haughty, yet completely helpless on their own, hopelessly dependent on human affection for their continued survival. Like a lot of people.

Fuyutsuki seemed concerned. "We are approaching a hectic period. Unit-08 is being disembarked as we speak and it must be made combat ready at the earliest possible time. Then, there's the matter of the pilot—the Commander has already met with the interested party. If I may, I would like to suggest that you take care of yourself while you still can."

Anyone else would have sounded patronizing, but not this man. There was a reason he had been one of the best meta-biology professors in the country. His students and colleagues, which at one point had included both Yui Ikari and Naoko Akagi, had loved him. If had been NERV's Supreme Commander things would have certainly turned out much different.

Fuyutsuki rose to his feet. "Please do not confuse my tone with indifference. This work is important, we all know that. But we have other priorities."

"We need to understand," Ritsuko said.

"In time we will. For now, you should ensure this information does not leave your hands. SEELE will not hesitate to blame us. I do not want to give them any more ammunition."

They exchanged a few more words, but Ritsuko did not consider them relevant. Just as soon as Fuyutsuki left she retrieved the disk from the projector and tossed it in her pocket. She leaned forward, placing an elbow on the machine and raising a hand to rub her temple in an attempt to fight the headache that she felt coming on.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a ghost. A ghost with blue hair and red eyes standing at the open door. Rei Ayanami.

"What do you want?" Ritusko barked angrily. That face always tended to bring out the worst in her. She wished she could be rid of the memories it represented; of what it made her feel.

"I wish to see her." Rei's voice was flat, emotionless.

It's like talking to a puppet, Ritsuko thought. But then, what did she expect? Rei was the next best thing. "See who?"

Rei stretched out her arms along her sides, palms facing forward as if crucified.

Ritsuko laughed bitterly. Of course. Why not? The bastard was trying to complete the cycle and had not bothered to tell her about it. Let his little project find out what it was like to be used by him.

"Yeah, I'll take you to her," she told the girl that was not really a girl. "But you must promise not to tell anyone. It has to be our secret."

* * *

To be continued...


	9. Unforgiven

Notes: Whoa. Two chapters in less than a month. Surprise. Special thanks go to Arkiel for the beta read. Also to Big D for letting me bounce ideas/thoughts/complains off him and just for listening to me. Thanks to Jimmy and Nemo, and also to all the people who drop reviews. You guys don't know how much it means to me.

I realize there were quite a few little mistakes that slipped through the cracks in the previous chapter so I'll try to look at it, since the next chapter is already mostly done. Just for fun, if you'd like to read this with better formatting than FFN, I'd recommend looking for the DS page (darkscribes dot org).

Also for fun, this is a picture of Keiko Nagara that Kami did a long time ago. Needless to say, it's contains

spoilers. http: // img193 dot imageshack dot us/i/keiko2 dot jpg/

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended**

"**To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."--Lewis B. Smedes**

**Genocide 0:9 / Unforgiven **

**

* * *

  
**

It was late afternoon when all the occupants of the Katsuragi household managed to sit down at the dinner table together. This had been Misato's idea, since she had arranged her schedule to spend the later part of the day with her charges in an effort to bring the three of them closer.

A few quiet days had gone by since the incident and both children seemed to be doing fine. Misato had to admit that she was still occasionally tempted to talk to them both about it, but Shinji had convinced her not to let Asuka know she had seen them like that. This was fine with her, but she made it clear that having a relationship was fine as long they kept their hands to themselves.

Shinji understood, even thought though he had clearly been embarrassed. It was something that needed to be said, if only for argument's sake.

It was clear that both children were struggling to put their feelings into words, as they both feinted around the issue. They tried to avoid talking about anything that would be considered intimate or private, including their mutual emotions, and had settled for just not fighting as much as they used to.

That was, in Misato's eyes, the biggest indicator that something had indeed changed between them.

All these things were going through the Major's head as she pulled out a chair and sat at the head of the table, the smell of sukiyaki beef washing over her. Shinji had made it, of course. The boy had been hard at work in the kitchen since getting home from school, and was now putting the final details on the meal.

Asuka was sitting across from her, a hungry look on her face. She would never admit to it, but Misato knew she liked Shinji's cooking. The German girl was playing absentmindedly with a chopstick, moving it along her fingers in the same manner one twirls a baton.

Misato shifted her gaze from the girl over to the boy standing by the stove.

"Come on, Shinji, I'm starving!" Asuka complained, in her most annoying tone. She set down her chopsticks and shifted her weight on the chair, folding her legs under her for greater comfort. "What is taking so long?"

"It'll just be a minute, Asuka." Shinji pulled the frying pan away from the heat, neatly placing its contents on a big tray from which all three of them could eat.

"It smells good," Misato said.

"Thank you," Shinji replied, as he brought the tray over to the table, placing it in the middle. "I'm trying a new recipe."

Asuka was less congratulatory. "Yeah, yeah. You were taking so long I thought you were trying to make gold from lead." She frowned. "You could have raised the cow yourself by now. Why does everything have to take so long with you, Third Child?"

"Sorry," Shinji replied as he took his seat.

"Dammit, don't do that." Asuka was the first to go on the offensive against the Sukiyaki dish, using her chopsticks as spears. "It bothers me and you know it."

"Sorry," Shinji replied instinctively, as he added a few strips of beef and vegetables to his own plate.

Asuka's growled in annoyance. "You know, I'm starting to think you do it on purpose. Nobody could be so dense."

"Asuka, stop picking on him," Misato ordered between bites. "It's just his conditioned response, like a defense."

"Sounds more like an excuse to bother me," the redhead said.

"I don't mean to bother you," Shinji murmured as he focused on his plate to avoid Asuka's eyes. "I just … you know, forget."

Asuka said something with her mouth full.

"Old habits die hard," Misato stepped in. "Just imagine how hard breaking a habit like that can be."

There was no reply to that. the three of them settled down and became absorbed with enjoying the food as much as possible. No one spoke, which created a semi-awkward silence. Misato took this quiet time to focus on some of the important issues she had refused to address for the last few weeks.

And the most pressing of these was the selection of the new pilot.

She had yet to meet the girl that had been chosen, but one thing was clear: she couldn't dodge telling Shinji any longer. The memory of what had happened the last time there was a new pilot was painfully embedded in her mind. Shinji wouldn't take it well, that much she knew; neither would Asuka, she didn't think. But the at least the redhead would have an easier time accepting reality. She was not the one who had previously been forced to kill a fellow pilot and friend.

Misato had meant to tell them both at the same time, but now it seemed that that would only cause more problems. Divide and conquer seemed a more advisable strategy.

Asuka finished first. She placed her chopsticks on the plate and rose, pushing her chair away from the table. "I'm done."

Shinji nodded, still eating. "I'll take your plate away in a minute."

The redhead barely reacted to that, as if she had been expecting such an answer. Misato noticed that she looked at Shinji with a certain degree of contempt in her eyes, which the boy failed to see since he was doing all he could to avoid Asuka's gaze.

Finally, Asuka smiled weakly, and pushed her chair noisily away from the table. "I'm taking a bath, so don't you dare turn on that faucet until I'm done."

Oddly enough, Misato didn't pick any venom on the words. It was almost as if Asuka had made a request rather than a command, something she seldom did. Another sign of change, perhaps.

"I won't, Asuka," Shinji replied, meek as ever.

Asuka rose, keeping her palms on the table and leaning over it. "You better not!" With that the haughty German girl walked out without so much as offering thanks for the meal, slipping the flexible accordion door that connected to the bathroom shut behind her.

Shinji watched her leave, his expression attentive, not the usual reluctant look of someone being bossed around. Then again, Shinji was as non-confrontational as they came.

Misato remained quiet throughout the whole exchange, determined to let the children deal with each other on their own terms instead of trying to deal with both of them on hers. It was clear that they had figured something amongst themselves. And it seemed to have done both of them good—Asuka wasn't yelling and grinding Shinji under her heel, and he wasn't … well, he was just being himself.

Once the Major was finished, she, like Asuka before her, placed her chopsticks on the plate. Unlike Asuka, he knew how to show gratitude. "It was very good, Shinji."

"Thank you, Misato-san."

Getting out of his chair, he began picking up their plates and then took them over to the sink.

As she watched him go over these mundane household tasks, Misato decided that it was now or never. More than anyone else, he had a right to know. And if she wanted to pretend she was anything like a mother to him, it was her who had to tell him.

"Shinji-kun?" Misato's voice quivered, something that instantly made Shinji raise his head and look at her worriedly.

He hesitated, maybe hoping she would say something without him having to ask. "What is it?"

"I need to talk to you," Misato began. "About something very important."

"Oh, okay." He finished setting down the plates and returned to the table. "I'm listening."

Looking at him almost made Misato loose her nerve. But she found strength in the knowledge that it was the right thing to do. "Not here. Let's take a walk. It'll be good for digestion, too."

"Um, but I have to do the dishes," the boy murmured, casting a glance towards the sink behind him.

"You won't be able to do them until Asuka gets out of the bathroom." Misato stood up. "And you know she takes her time in there."

She had him there. While Shinji went to put on his shoes on the landing, Misato knocked on the bathroom door. "Asuka, we are going out. Be back in a few."

"I'm busy!" Asuka yelled back from within. "Geez, can't a girl get a little privacy around here? I don't need to know where you are going. I'm not your babysitter!"

Misato heard a chuckle. By then Shinji had reappeared on the hallway, a small grin on his face. "Oh, you think it's funny?" She took him by the shoulders and turned him around, in the direction of the door, and pushed him playfully along. "Go on, let me get some shoes on."

* * *

Asuka sat naked on the toilet, having already tossed all her clothes into the laundry basket, and stared blankly at the ceiling. She had not intended to take so long, but once the memories threatened so surface in her mind she felt suddenly drained.

Whenever she was alone, whenever there was no one around to see, Asuka felt like she could just collapse. Just like now. Just like then. And she remembered.

That night, after coming from the balcony, Asuka had laid on her bed with her head buried in her pillow. The tears had finally stopped, not because she had managed to stop herself from crying**,** but because she was too tired to keep it up. Just as she had been too tired to even change out of her school uniform. She waited for sleep to get her, hoping that that would provide some escape from the tidal wave of emotions she had experienced.

"_But I need you,"_ the boy so infuriatingly dear to her heart had told her, but she still wondered it he really meant it.

"_I…need you."_

She had stared blankly at the darkness around her, at her tear soaked pillow, at her door, at her lamp, at her wall and finally had decided to just close her eyes and wait.

Strangely, she felt the same as when the Angel had ripped through her mind. This time, however, she had not pushed the one person that care for her away. She had let him hold her, despite what her pride and everything else that she had come to be told her.

Because she wanted to be held, desperately. By him. By the boy she could both not stand and not be without. And it had eased her suffering in a way that didn't seem possible. For a moment, she had escaped the loneliness in his arms. Even as she cried she was not ashamed. Even as she fell into despair she knew it would not last.

Because he was there with her. And he made it all better.

The memories were painful, yes, but she had not been forced to revisit them. Not like before at least, when they were ripped out of her subconscious. She had willingly shared them with him, the worse of everything she carried with her.

And he had been there for her.

Asuka sighed, the single light bulb in the middle of the ceiling no longer very interesting. She looked down at her right hand, her knuckles still a vivid black and blue, and shifted uncomfortably on the seat. She had started to sweat. The plastic felt sticky against her buttocks. Without her neural connectors, her hair fell into a loose mane of golden-red locks. For a moment she held her head in her hands, not sure why it was worth getting up.

Then she thought about what Shinji would think in seeing her like that. He would worry, apologize, offer his kindness. Kindness that she didn't deserve.

Asuka stood and undid the latch on the water closet door. Even naked, the tiny space was sweltering, made more so by the light and the lack of ventilation. She grabbed a towel from the rack before moving to the bathtub, the muted padding of her bare feet the only sound, and starting the faucet running on hot water.

Amidst a plume of rising steam, Asuka began gathering her plentiful mane into a large knot atop her head, then wrapped the towel around it to keep it from getting soaked.

She didn't wait for the tub to fill. She was tired of waiting. Climbing into the tub and sitting on the hot water, she felt a redness coloring her skin as the heat soaked in. The water was barely to her waist, her knees sticking up like pale islands on the surface. But she did not lay back; even though she enjoyed the feeling of warmth**,** she could not relax. Instead she stared blankly at the water between her legs.

Asuka looked at her bruised hand again, and could all but feel the faint traces of Shinji's touch.

Was she so desperate for contact? What if he hadn't stopped? Would she have had the courage to make him stop? Would she have forced herself on him, or would she have allowed him to continue?

Asuka had tried to come up with answer to these questions, but found it impossible. There were too many things in her heart. She wanted to be left alone, but at the same time feared the loneliness; she wanted to push him away, but couldn't find the strength to. Even then she realized just how weak she had become. The comfort had overwhelmed her and she couldn't move away.

And, like the hot water now caressing her bare skin, she wasn't sure she ever wanted it to stop.

* * *

A hundred different heartaches appeared on Shinji's young face as she spoke. Wounds long ago thought closed reopened. And Misato could not avoid the sense that it was her fault.

"I know this is hard to accept, but if there were anything I could have done to stop it, I would have," she finished, as she leaned on the handrail and closed her eyes waiting for the yelling to begin, but the expected tantrum never came.

"W-why are they doing this?" Shinji could barely keep his voice from breaking down.

The two of them had walked for a few minutes and eventually came to rest at a set of stairs that led up to one of the apartment buildings. Shinji sat down, while Misato remained standing.

Orange hues tinted the sky, casting deep, dark shadows on everything the light touched. There was no one else on the street.

"Since the last Angel, NERV has become a priority. So has the defense of Tokyo-3," Misato tried to explain, an action complicated by the fact that she didn't know if she believed that anymore. NERV now had two fully-functional Evangelion and a third they had chosen not to repair. Bringing in another, and a new pilot, hardly made tactical sense. "I guess with the possibility of more Angels they couldn't stand by and do nothing to fortify the defenses. But I'm not trying to use that as an excuse."

Shinji hesitated. "And the pilot?"

Misato could sense the fear in his voice, which was understandable given what had happened in the past. Letting go of the wrought-iron rail, she sat by his side, no longer an authority figure but a confidant. "It's a girl," she said, practically into his ear. "Ritsuko is handling it for now. I don't know her name yet, but you'll meet her once everything is confirmed."

Shinji said nothing after that. His eyes sufficed to prove and express everything he felt.

"Listen, Shinji," Misato continued, having hardly ever felt so low. "Asuka doesn't know yet. I think it'll be better if you let me tell her myself."

"S-sure, I guess."

There was no reason for either of them to state why that was a good idea. Asuka was already dealing with so much—something like this would just add more fuel to the fire, and that was if she took it well. If she took it badly ...

"I'll get some information on the pilot so you guys can meet with her outside of Central Dogma. That way the situation will be easier for her, and I think for you. I heard she's a student too," Misato said. "I hope she can get along with Asuka."

Shinji leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. "Why is this happening again?"

"Don't think about it as a chance for history to repeat itself," Misato said. "Nobody wants that."

"My father does," Shinji said morosely.

"From what I hear he went to some extreme lengths to make sure what happened last time wasn't repeated." Misato could not believe she was actually defending the Commander from his son. But her dedication to Shinji compelled her to be honest with him. "Your father is capable of a lot. But he is a pragmatic man. He has to have his reasons, even if we don't know what they are."

Shinji moved his hands away from his face. He seemed bitter. "Have you met my father?"

"Ouch."

She gave him a few moments to mull over the new information, not wanting to rush him or make him feel as though she was putting him on the spot. Both of them had reasons to dislike this situation, but only for Shinji were those reasons personal.

Finally, Misato put a hand on his back, patting him gently through his shirt. "Come on. Asuka's probably wondering where we went to by now. Wouldn't want to make her worry."

"She's right, you know," he said sullenly. But as he brought his eyes towards her, Misato caught a spark of grim humor. "You don't need her to babysit you."

"Have you met me?"

* * *

Evangelion Unit-08 lacked most of the complex features that were characteristic of other units. Among other things, it was missing the shoulder pylons, which held the progressive knives and, in Unit-02's case, a spike gun. The armor was bone white, with few unique features since it was created for streamlined mass production. It was even missing the external power plug. Its S2 engine made that redundant.

Although this was one of the Eva Series greatest advantages, along with its incredible regeneration capability and its ability to withstand a horrendous amount of damage, it also became a problem when testing was concerned. Unlimited power and untested equipment had terrible potential for disaster.

"It gives me the creeps," Maya said, as she stared at the thing in the cooling cage from a gantry around its chest. The cross-shaped stasis plug was almost in position, the pilot's entry plug having already been removed after the successful activation was conducted.

Most of the chest armor had been removed, exposing the dark flesh underneath, the red core, a new addition since the original purple core had to be disposed off and replaced.

"I hear you," Aoba replied, without taking his gaze of the Evangelion either.

"I mean it doesn't even have eyes. It's like some kind of demon."

"And to think there are eight more like it."

"Man can create horrible things, can't he?" The voice startled them for a second, but they both recognized it. They turned to face the Sub-Commander, who quickly made his way to across the metal walkway.

"Sir," the two NERV technicians saluted briskly and at unison.

"At ease, Lieutenants," Fuyutsuki said. "How was it?"

"All safety parameters have been cleared," Aoba reported. "The pilot's synch-ratio hovered around 30 to 35 percent for most of the test."

"The main interface reconfiguration worked without a hitch," Maya said. "All A-10 connectors have been reset as well as the neural transmitters and receivers. All values in the system are at zero. Life support and all standard safety measures have been enabled. The S2 engine and the flight configuration are the only concerns now."

"Why is that, Lieutenant?"

"Well, as you know, the S2 engine was implanted with the purpose of being linked to a dummy, certainly not a human pilot, so the Eva will not run out of power. It will be impossible to control it using the power supply as a regulator. If for some reason it goes berserk, it'll have to be destroyed and that rules out a broad spectrum of tests that would be too dangerous."

"Doctor Akagi seemed to think the S2 engined worked perfectly," Fuyutsuki said.

"And the flight configuration?"

"We'll be lucky if we can teach the pilot to walk in this, let alone fly." Fuyutsuki replied. "It is impossible to remove the wings, but the whole internal configuration can be disposed of, or at least frozen."

"I'll have a team work on that." Maya said.

Fuyusuki gave her a nod. "Good. What is the situation with the pilot?"

"She experienced major discomfort, as we expected. Doctor Akagi is taking cared of her. I don't have any current information on that." Maya felt uncomfortable talking about the pilot as if she were a piece of equipment.

Ritsuko had made it clear Unit**-**08 was to be used for several experiments, but not as a combat weapon, which meant that the pilot would be little more than a guinea pig. Still, the alternative was much worse. Instinctively, the young lieutenant wrapped her arms around her clipboard.

"Very well, carry on." Fuyutsuki turned to leave. "A new test has been planned for three days from now. Make sure Unit-08 is ready."

Maya's throat went dry. "Y-yes, sir. I understand."

There was an awkwardness in her voice that was hard to miss. Fuyutsuki did not wait for her to finish. He didn't need to hear that she understood; only that she would do her job, regardless. It made her feel very much used.

"Maya?" Aoba nudged her gently.

"Uh?"

"Are you OK?"

"I guess," Maya replied. "I just don't like this."

Aoba gave her a lop-sided smile. "When was the last time you liked anything we are doing here, Maya?" he said sarcastically.

Maya blew her breath out in a sigh. "A long time."

* * *

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do, Hikari," Keiko whispered, hoping that she could keep herself from crying.

"I can't help you with this," Hikari replied shaking her head, her stomach tied into a knot. "I'm sorry."

They were on the school's yard, sitting on one of the benches. The Class Representative had known something had been worrying her friend for the last few days. She never imagined it would be this. It seemed too fantastic, like a movie. But, no, it was real and happening to yet another of the people she cared about.

It seemed to her that the Evangelions existed only to ruin people's lives—Toji's chiefly among them. and that was to say nothing of Asuka and Shinji, and everyone who worried and cared about them.

"I don't know what to do," Keiko repeated, wrapping her arms around herself. "When I was inside of it I … I thought it was going to swallow me. It felt like drowning. I was so scared. But … it also felt …" she didn't finish, a conflicted, confused expression on her face.

"Have you talked to Asuka about this?" Hikari reached out tentatively and took a hold of Keiko's shoulder.

"No." The girl ran a hand over her eyes to clear gathering tears. "I can't. She doesn't like me."

"Asuka is not as mean as she makes you think, you know," Hikari said. "If you talk to her about this**,** she will understand."

"I can't."

"There are only two people that can possibly help you: Shinji and Asuka," the Class Representative explained patiently. "Shinji, well, he's got lots of problems. And Asuka has problems too, but I think she might be able to help you a great deal. She's gone through some horrible things herself, and she's always managed to come out of it alright."

"She wouldn't want to talk to me about this," Keiko whispered. "After what happened the other day she wouldn't want to talk to me about anything at all."

"You don't know that. I told you, Asuka is a good friend to have around. Even if she doesn't come across as such."

Keiko shook her head, her ponytail whipping left and right. "She yelled at me."

"She yells at me too, but you don't see me upset about it." Hikari shrugged. "I've known her long enough to know that many of the the things she says come out in the heat of the moment. And besides**,** you touched a really sensitive issue."

"But I never thought she'd react like that. If I had know there was something serious between her and Shinji I would have never said anything like that."

"And now you know, so talk to her and tell her you didn't mean it."

"She won't listen to me."

"Would you like me to talk to her?" Hikari asked, feeling a little guilty since it was the only thing she could really do to help her friend. "It's not good to do something like this alone; what they want you to do, I mean. Even if you are a very strong person, like Asuka, you shouldn't go about it alone."

"I--" Keiko began but the voice calling from across the yard cut her short.

"Hikari!"

The two girls looked up as Kensuke made his way towards them. For the first time Hikari also became aware of Asuka standing in a corner, alone, and throwing angry glances in their direction. "Aida?"

"The teacher is looking for you, Hikari," Kensuke said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "Something about a phone call."

The Class Representative nodded and smiled. "Thank you, Aida." She stood gave Keiko grin she hoped was soothing enough for now. "See you in class, Keiko. But please remember what we talked about. I would hate to see anything happen to you."

"Uh? Yeah." Keiko forced a smile on her face but failed to hide the hint of sorrow in her words. "See you later."

Hikari briskly stepped across the yard, passing several students with curious looks on their faces, probably wondering why a teacher would summon a student over a phone call. It was a special arrangement. It was unseemly to use her cell phone in school, and Toji knew perfectly well what time it was.

But when she came close to Asuka, the redhead turned up her nose at her. "So," she huffed haughtily. "Fraternizing with the enemy, huh?"

Hikari stopped, her expression somewhere between hurt and outraged. "She's not my enemy. And she's not yours either."

Asuka crossed her arms over chest. "I don't supposed telling you not to bother will deter you. You just have to help everybody, don't you?"

"I helped you," Hikari said, finally letting her annoyance get the better of her. Asuka was her best friend, but she was not nearly start-struck enough that she could stop being honest with herself. Nor could she stop being honest with Asuka. Being able to look at each other below the surface was one of the reasons they had stayed friends for so long.

Biting back a response, Asuka turned, her usual tactic when she knew her hot-headed position was not defensible in the face of cool logic.

Unable to leave it at that, Hikari called out. "Give her a chance, will you? Do it for me. So I don't have to worry about you beating her up and having to give you detention. And who knows, maybe you two have more in common than you think."

Asuka gave a short, sharp laugh that sounded cruel even to her best friend. "Fat chance."

Hikari grumbled under her breath; while she would never doubt her friendship with Asuka, she did question everything she had just told Keiko. She could only do so much, but it seemed like the poor girl would be going through her ordeal alone, at least for now. Hikari wouldn't wish that on anyone.

* * *

Something was bothering Shinji and Asuka could tell. He had never been very good at hiding such things, and she was shrewd enough that it would have been pointless anyway. It made him uncomfortable, but all he could do was stay quiet. Thus, he hadn't said much to her throughout the day, and it was obviously starting to annoy her.

They were heading home from the train, like they did every day, walking down the sidewalk that led to their building complex. Asuka led the way a good ten feet in front of Shinji and occasionally slowing down to let the Third Child catch up with her. He would normally ask her to wait for him, and then she would yell at him for not walking fast enough and slowing her down. Not today.

To Shinji, it seemed Asuka's first reasponce was to think he was mad at her for something, which he couldn't understand since she hadn't done anything to him.

In fact they were treating each other much better than before. But Shinji was well aware that Asuka was Asuka and every little thing seemed to have the potential to touch her off. Not only was he not mad at her, he was glad to have her around.

Then realization dawned: his talk with Misato must have triggered this morose behavior! It had to be. that was the only thing that made sense to her. Whatever their guardian had told him had caused the awkward silence, along with the depressing aura that had enveloped him ever since.

The redhead restrained herself from asking about it, though Shinji knew her curiosity was bound to get the better of her eventually.

Shinji did not have to be a mind reader to guess what she was thinking. But if he told her what it was all about, Asuka would only get angry, and probably more so because Misato had left her out of the loop. She was a grown-up, at least in her own eyes, so if Misato could talk about anything serious with a boy like Shinji, Asuka would naturally take offense to being excluded.

Again Asuka slowed down in front of him and stopped, allowing the Third Child to catch up with her. Shinji passed her by, expecting her to resume walking right behind and eventually overtake him, but she did not.

He came to a halt as soon as he noticed this and turned**.**

"A-Asuka?" It was the first time he had said her named all day. "Is there something wrong?"

"Yes, there is," Asuka deadpanned. "You're what's wrong."

Shinji's eyes widened. "Me?"

Her face remained stony, but it was obvious she was angry. "Misato told you something bad about me, didn't she? I swear, if I find out you told her anything about the other night--"

"No," Shinji shook his head, even though he had actually told Misato everything. "That's not it."

"Don't lie to me!" Asuka gave him a scowl. "She told you something about me."

He bit his lower lip, uncertain. Misato was right to keep something like this from Asuka out of a desire to protect her, but he couldn't just withhold the information now that he had been asked directly. Forget lying. And Asuka would find out eventually, then blame him for not telling her, making everything even worse. "It's..."

Asuka stomped her foot petulantly. "If she told you something about me I want to know! Now!"

Shinji clenched his hand around the strap of her book bag, draped across his body from shoulder to hip. "She didn't tell me anything about you."

Asuka seemed surprised. "Then why else would you refuse to talk about it?"

"It's not about you, but it's still painful." Shinji didn't know what else to say. Misato had asked him not to tell her and he had thought that not doing so would be easy, but after everything that had happened between the two of them, after Asuka poured her heart out to him, he could not keep secrets from her.

"Painful?"Asuka raised an thin orange eyebrow. "How so?"

"She asked me not to tell you, but," Shinji began, focusing his pale blue eyes on the redhead as if to study her reaction to what he was about to say, "I think you should know."

"Talk already!"

Shinji nodded and told her everything he knew. Everything Misato said, almost exactly as he remembered she said it though more hesitantly. And he waited for Asuka to go crazy.

But Asuka's only reaction to the news that they would be having a new pilot join their ranks was her eyes, which widened with each passing word. She had clearly not been expecting something like this, though it did not seem to disturb her in the same way it did him. There was no distress in her face, but a mixture or surprise shifting into anger and confusion.

To Shinji, it seemed that she just failed to grasp the significance of the situation. Then again, she hadn't been the one that killed the previous pilot. Not her. Maybe she just couldn't understand how he felt.

By the time he finished, Asuka's eyes narrowed from behind the locks of red hair. "You shouldn't lie about things like that, stupid," she hissed.

"I'm telling you the truth," Shinji replied, allowing his gaze to drop. He could see his own shoes on the gray concrete. "I wish it were a lie."

"I see," Asuka finally acknowledged, her voice flat. "But why would they need another Evangelion. It's not like we're doing anything at the moment."

Shinji chewed nervously on his words. "Um, I don't know. Misato said it was because the Americans were scared of it."

Suddenly Asuka shoved him, forcefully enough to turn his shoulder and make him look up. "Americans aren't cowards. My father is American, which makes me an American citizen."

At least she didn't throw him to the ground this time, he thought. No need to worry about taking her towel off either. "Sorry, I didn't know."

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes, twisting her lips are hearing him apologize. "So who is it?"

"Misato didn't know," he explained, hoping she would accept such a vague and obviously useless answer. "Probably another student. You know, like To—" it hurt just to say his name so Shinji stopped himself and changed tack "or Ka—"

There was so much pain associated with those two incidents that he did not want to relive them in any way. But whereas his athletic, dark-skinned friend was still alive, Kaworu was not. He died by Shinji's own hands after he had disabled Unit-02 in hand-to-hand combat.

He did not even know if Asuka had ever found out about that. That was why, perhaps, he saw little sympathy in her eyes.

"God, I hope it's not Aida," she said with an annoyed frown. "That nerd would have a such a nosebleed it'd give him a stroke. I guess it could be Hikari. That would be pretty cool."

"But … doesn't it bother you?"

Asuka raised her shoulders in a shrug. "Why would it? Right now we are the best there is. You and me. Anyone else will just be a witness to our greatness. It's not like they'd get a chance to do anything with us around."

She didn't understand. He almost resented her for it. "It's not that, it's ..."

"I can't believe Misato wouldn't want to tell me this. Who the hell does she think she is?"

What else had he expected from her? Her ego was so large it was miracle she didn't run into it like a brick wall while she was walking around. But what made him think she might be able to see his point of view? He had never talked about Kaworu with her, nor did he really want to now. As far as she was concerned he had never existed.

For a moment he fought the urge to say something harsh. Asuka, noticed his mood had turned sour and blinked repeatedly, surprised at the change. "What?" she said shrilly.

"Nothing." He did not want to say anything else. And, although puzzled, Asuka seemed willing to respect that.

They resumed walking, side by side this time. She kept looking at him weirdly. It made Shinji feel uncomfortable.

Once inside the apartment they went their separate way, Shinji to his room and Asuka to hers. He changed out of his uniform, slipping into a pair of shorts and a white sleeveless shirt with a red sun on it.

Homework could wait. Retrieving his SDAT from inside his book bad, he lay on his warm bed and skipped through the tracks.

Beethoven's Ninth was his song.

Shinji closed his eyes as the notes from Beethoven's Ode to Joy poured from his earphones. He wondered why someone who was intended on wiping out mankind would listen to a song as beautiful as this. Maybe that was one of the reasons why he decided that humanity needed a second chance. After all, how bad can a race that creates such wonderful things be?

Shinji missed him dearly.

Kaworu had been special. They had shared a lot of things; he had taught Shinji what the true value of life was. And then Shinji killed him because he was dangerous.

"Hey, stupid, are you deaf or something?" Asuka's loud voice broke through his wall of thoughts.

He sprang up, seeing her standing by his open door. She had changed into a pair of high-cut shorts and a top that seemed a little better than a bra. The light from the living room framed her slender figure, obscuring some of the details. Without the few wrinkles from her scant clothing, she would have appeared to be naked.

For once he regretted not having a lock. Though it wouldn't deter her much if she wanted something from him.

"Are you listening?" Asuka hissed, strolling towards him with purpose, bending over him, her golden-red hair pouring across her bare shoulders, and plucked the right ear-bud out of his ear. In the process she gave Shinji, who was sitting up, a good look at her budding cleavage. She knew this always managed to get his attention. "Where's the remote?"

He was staring at her. "Huh?"

"What is the matter with you?" The redhead sounded more than a little annoyed as she straitened up and folded her arms. "I want to watch TV. You had it last. Now give it up."

"Pen-pen's probably got it in his freezer again," he said more gloomily that such a trivial statement would require.

So much so than even Asuka could not ignore it any longer. "Geez, you are really feeling down over this whole new pilot thing, aren't you?" When he didn't reply, she added, "Wanna talk about it?"

Shinji really didn't, and he shook his head. Asuka looked down at him sternly, as if trying to decide if she should push the issue further. In a strange way, Shinji wanted her to. That night he had found her on the balcony he had not let her brush him off so easily. He hadn't left her then, and he wished she wouldn't …

By the time he was coming around to completing that thought Asuka had already turned around and in the process of leaving.

His eyes focused on her heels, round, pink, delicate. He wished so badly they would stop.

And then they did stop. And Asuka turned back.

"Do you really think I'm so ungrateful that I would just walk out on you?" she said, her bright blue eyes blazing with the sort of intensity that was such an impressive part of her character. "A few nights ago I wanted nothing more than to wallow in my own misery. But you wouldn't let me."

Shinji felt better hearing her acknowledge his presence had helped, slightly. "Asuka, you don't have to—"

"I'm not stupid!" she thrilled. "I know what's bothering you. I just don't know why. So you can either tell me, or I'll wring it out of you by force."

To leave him no choice in the matter, she turned on the light overhead, making him blink in discomfort, then trudged over to him and yanked his SDAT away. She plopped down on the bed next to him, bouncing up as her firm bottom met the soft mattress, and fixed him with an interested stare.

His cheeks warmed in embarrassment. He could not help it; with the light on there was no ignoring just how scantily dressed she was. Most of her upper body was bare, after all, and even the shorts left little to the imagination.

But Asuka did not appear to mind his blush. Her eyes peered at him in unbridled curiosity. "So?"

With nowhere left to hide, Shinji swallowed hard. "It's because of all that happened before," he began, trying his best steel himself against the onrush of anguish and guilt he felt coming. "The last pilot, Kaworu, I..."

It felt strange to tell Asuka these things, yet at the same time it felt as though the words carried away some of his burden as he uttered them. And she was there to actually listen to him. Well, not just listen.

"You mean because you killed him?"

Shinji cringed visibly at her bluntness. The memory of what happened was still so vividly imprinted in his mind he could practically experience it all over again.

"I would have lived with her," Kaworu had said, as Unit-01 held him tightly clasped in its hand. Shinji's hand. "It is my destiny to live forever, though my survival will bring final destruction to the human race. However, it is possible for me to be killed, and whether I live or die makes no great difference. You made my existence worthwhile. Thank you."

"Y-yes." Shinji shivered, his knees rising up against his chest protectively. Suddenly, he wished she wouldn't ask anything more. He thought it was incredibly selfish how a second ago he had wanted her not to leave and now …

"Is that it?" Asuka said. "He was an Angel, you know that. You had to kill him. You had to."

"He was my friend," he replied simply, as if that explained everything.

But Asuka was not satisfied. "Are you stupid? What difference does it make? You did what was right, didn't you? He would have killed all of us. Yourself included."

"Would you have done it?" Shinji asked.

"Done what?" Asuka twisted her shoulders around towards Shinji, shifting her position to that had one knee on the bed. He avoided her gaze. There was something about the way the light hit him that brought out the gentle factions of his face and gave them a sense of predominant darkness that exemplified his inner demons.

Shinji's head sank behind his knees. His voice was just a whisper. "Killed someone close to you."

Asuka didn't answer immediately and the question lingered in the air like a strange aroma. "I," she began finally, "if it were an Angel I would have."

Her honestly impressed him, but it didn't mean he believe she would. "Even if it—he—were a friend? What if it was someone like Hikari?"

Asuka pressed her lips together thoughtfully, her silence indicating the answer was not so clear cut when he put it that way. "Yes, even so," she said eventually. "I wouldn't have a choice. As Eva pilots we do what we must, and if you hadn't done it we'd all be dead. That's what it comes down to in the end. He needed to die."

Shinji was not convinced. It was easy for her to say those things because she had never been placed in that situation.

"No," he said miserably. "He shouldn't have have died. He was a lot stronger than me. He should have lived. I should have died instead."

"Stop it!" Asuka's roar caught him by surprise.

Shinji shook his head, lifting his gaze to look at her over the top of his knees. "No, Asuka, I ..."

"I said stop**,** dammit!" the redhead barked, rolling fully onto the bed and pointing a finger at him. "Don't you say that! You are alive and he's not, that's all that matters! He's in the past and you can never bring him back, but that doesn't mean that you have to suffer because of him! He was an Angel and you did the right thing! And if you hadn't he would have killed us all!"

"Asuka..."

She was yelling now. "You selfish idiot! If you want to die just jump of the damn balcony. But as you fall towards the cold, hard concrete I hope you get haunted by the voices of all the ones you are leaving behind! And if you really think you are so miserable that you can't live for yourself, then live for those around you."

Those words touched something deep inside Shinji, a fondness for her that seemed to have been there since long before he met her. And he wondered what she meant.

Was it possible that she was talking about herself?

"Sorry," he sighed and made to retrieve his S-DAT from her hand. "But I can't just forget what happened. I can't forget what I did."

She didn't let it go, her delicate fingers clasped tightly on the device. "You know, I never thanked you for being there for me."

"You don't have to," Shinji whispered.

Asuka swallowed her pride. "Thank you, anyways."

She meant it, too. The serious look on her face left no room to argue her sincerity. Yet that same look also bore a degree of softness that was so rare to see in her that a weeks back Shinji wouldn't have believed she was capable of it.

Then, just when the defenses that would normally cause him to avoid contact were at their weakest, she took him by the wrist and began trying to pull him off the bed. He resisted only out of instinct.

"Shinji!" Asuka cried in a whiny tone. "Come on, lets go watch some TV for while. It's better than laying here moping all night long by yourself. And you still need to help me find the remote."

Reluctantly, he let her drag him along, out of the close confines of his tiny bedroom and into the open space beyond. And all the while he wondered why.

* * *

The graveyard resembled a dead forest with only the elongated headstones rising like dead trees trunks providing any relief to the vast, monotonous landscape. Second Impact had brought with it more death and destruction than anyone cared to tally, and so only the people who could afford to pay for grave sites were allocated them by the government. The rest were simply dumped in mass graves or buried at sea.

Almost everyone lost a loved one, some lost all of them; very few were actually buried. But in a way, the high death toll served to save the living—so many people died that after a certain point food became easier to come by. Scarce resources became less scarce because there was nobody around to fight for them. The world found balance anew.

But now the balance was threatened. And if rumors where true, by the very man climbing out of the limousine on the other side of the binoculars. More than likely that was why the Ministry of the Interior had authorized a surveillance operation.

Increasing the magnification with a flick of her finger, the black-clad agent zoomed on the figures bellow. Gendo Ikari, tall and imposing, was joined by a young blue-haired girl somewhere in her mid-teens and wearing a school uniform.

"Sir, there's a child with him," the agent called out. "Blue hair."

Next to him, Department Chief Kluge removed a cigarette from his mouth. "Rei Ayanami. The First Child. Designated pilot of Eva Unit-00."

Ikari and the girl, Ayanami, made their way to one of the headstones about fifty yards away from the vehicle, their backs to the observers. There were no markings to distinguish it from any of the other headstones in this forest of the dead. The name could not be read through the binoculars.

"Are they talking?" Kluge inquired.

"I can't tell," the agent said. "They've stopped moving. There's a headstone in front of them."

Musashi Kluge nodded. "I thought so."

The agent lowered his binoculars just enough to allow him a glance at his boss. "Sir?"

"That's his wife, Yui Ikari. She's buried here. Well, not exactly. According to some of our reports there was not enough of her left to bury. The Evangelion simply swallowed her during an experiment."

The agent felt a shiver go up his spine. "It can do that? Swallow people?"

"Among other things." Kluge turned to the car idling behind them, parked on the opposite side of the road. From the high vantage point they were on it would be difficult to spot them, but they had not taken any chances. Leaving the car on the inside shoulder guaranteed it could not be seen from below.

The men inside did not need to be asked. "There is nothing on the microphone, sir." one of them said. "They are too far away."

"Disappointing," Kluge growled. "I hate wasting my time."

Though not surprising, the agent thought. In such open spaces there were just not many surfaces for sound vibrations to bounce of off, making even laser microphones nearly useless.

Ikari and Ayanami stood in front of a headstone for almost twenty minutes before the NERV Commander began walking back to the car. The girl did not move, but the agent ignored her for now and followed Ikari.

"Ikari is leaving," he informed.

Kluge nodded again. "It seems the field trip is over."

But the agent did not follow his superior across the road. As Ikari re-entered the car bellow, he directed his binoculars back along the trail towards the blue-haired girl, still standing patiently over the grave. Her short haired waved subtly in the breeze; the hem of her pleated skirt did likewise.

So that was what Eva pilots looked like. He knew they were young, but this was insanity. This girl should be in school, middle school at that. What kind of a madman would place a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of a child?

Suddenly, everything he'd heard about NERV seemed unquestionably, undeniably true. And all of it was bad.

He gazed at the girl for a few minutes, playing with the device's focus and magnification for the best possible result, but all he could see was the back of her head. But then Rei turned her head slowly and raised her eyes. It was then that he was hit by a thought.

Was she looking at him?

The agent lowered the binoculars and stared at the point where the girl was supposed to be standing. She was nearly invisible to the naked eye and he was sure that, from her point of view, he was invisible to her. He was being paranoid; it just wasn't possible.

"Agent!"

He snapped out of it with a jerk of his head. "Sir?"

"If you don't mind." The chief shook his head, already halfway inside the car rear cab. "That is, of course, unless you prefer to walk."

* * *

Asuka tapped her toes impatiently as the elevator continued its ride down to the Briefing Room. She wished the damn thing would hurry up. It was not being called up in the middle of class that bothered her, but being told that this exercise was for the benefit of someone else did.

NERV surely knew how to waste valuable resources. Asuka would rather be being synch-testing, or training, or doing just about anything else. And preferably that anything could involve Shinji. Though the Third Child had been sulking around since yesterday, he was still good company as far as she was concerned.

Her patience already stretched to the limit, the small metal box stopped at a floor nearly twelve levels above her final destination. Asuka cursed under her breath.

The doors pinged open. The German redhead narrowed her eyes.

Ritsuko Akagi stood with Keiko Nagara on the other side.

"Going down, Asuka?" Ritsuko inquired, flashing a smile that was as sharp as it was fake.

"What the hell is she doing here?" Asuka replied, ignoring the question entirely. Her eyes were focused solely on the pony-tailed brunette she disliked with every fiber of her being.

"Um," Keiko mumbled, her gaze somewhere around Asuka's knees. "Hi, Asuka."

The fact that the brunette girl knew her name seemed to catch Ritsuko by surprise.

"Oh, that's right. You already know each other."

Asuka glared frozen blue daggers at her. Had she thought she could get away with it, she would have slapped her.

"Y-yeah, we are in the same class," Keiko answered nervously because the redhead was obviously not going to.

Ritsuko took in that small detail as it were the most vital piece of information she had heard in a while."Ah, of course. 2-A, I forgot."

Asuka was a smart girl and didn't need to be told that was going on. She put all the clues together in a matter of seconds. But it was so clear that even Shinji could have figured it out. It filled her with anger.

The German girl frowned and locked eyes with Keiko.

"You, Nagara?" She snarled. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

* * *

By the time Keiko had managed to get her new plugsuit to her waistline Asuka was already fully suited. She marveled the redhead's grace of movement even with dealing with the obnoxious form-fitting outfit. The other girl was probably used to it by now—she had to be since she had been doing this for so long, while Keiko herself had just received her own suit a few days after crying and barfing her way through her first activation test.

Not a very pleasant experience in general.

Since it was custom made for her, the new plugsuit was a nicer fit than the first black one she had worn. It was yellow with black and white accents, and she had to admit it felt lighter and was easier to handle as well. But that still did not make the chore of getting in on any simpler.

She was beyond nervous—not to mention beyond intimidated—and more than one time her mind had wandered away from the task at hand.

What had she gotten herself into? The activation test was bad enough, but she couldn't believe what she was about to do. She wanted out of it. Yet a part of her knew that was not an option. Everybody wanted this from her, even her own mother if she were still alive. She couldn't let her down of all people. And then there was Miko.

How does she do it? Keiko wondered, focusing on Asuka as the redhead finished sealing the collar of her plugsuit. Once it was done, she lifted her hair over her shoulders and allowed it to flow down her back. She pressed a button on the small wristband computer and the suit's mechanism hissed as it vented the air out and tightened around her body.

Hers was a glorious form, just stunning; looking at herself, still half naked, Keiko felt woefully inadequate. Her own teen body was slender, and had all the right curves, but it was not on the same level as Asuka.

"What are you gawking at?" Asuka's voice was scornful, full of vile. She didn't even turn to look at the brunette as she spoke.

"N-nothing," came Keiko's muffled reply.

"Then stop staring at me like a lost puppy."

"Sorry."

Asuka placed the clothes she had just slipped out of on her locker and slammed the door shut. "God, do you have to be such a doormat? It makes me sick." She sneered. "If you have to be a pilot, then you should try to act like one."

"I was just…thinking about how hard this is," Keiko tried to explain. "But you do it so naturally."

"That's because I was born to do it. I'm not some fill-in they dug up at the last minute."

Keiko knew exactly what she meant by that; there was enough spite in her words to make her realize it.

The brunette began fitting the upper part of the one-piece suit and almost became entangled in a web of flexible, rubbery material. It was frustrating. The inside of the suit was lined with some kind of protective mesh that stuck to her bare skin making it more or less impossible to slide into any part of it.

She struggled for a few minutes and almost lost her balance a few times, but finally managed to wrap the garment on her arms and over her shoulders.

Asuka watched the girl thrash about and shook her head. "Pathetic."

"I'm doing the best I can!" Keiko replied. Exhausted, she took a seat on one of the locker room benches to catch her breath and began fiddling with the front of the suit. It took her a few more minutes to fit it over her chest in such a way that it wouldn't pinch, squeeze or do any other uncomfortable thing.

"Well move it. If we don't get out of here soon, they'll probably sent a search party for us."

Keiko ignored that last remark as she stood and, having made sure the seals were all secured, pressed her right wrist. She squeezed her eyes shut and gasped as the suit closed around her body with an iron grip.

But as she made to go through the door, Asuka blocker her away with an outstretched arm. "Okay, just so there's no misunderstanding here," she said, her teeth bared. "I don't like you. I haven't liked you since ever, and I specially don't like you now."

Keiko fidgeted. "You know, I'm sorry I--"

"I don't care to hear it." Asuka reached out and grabbed Keiko's stiff suit collar, slipping two gloved fingers beneath the seal and pulling her closer. Wide, trembling brown eyes met icy cold blue ones. "I'm not in a habit of forgiving people. And I have absolutely no reason to forgive you. So you better stop saying you are sorry because it's not going to do you any good. Understood?"

"But I really am sorry," Keiko said, her voice morphing into a whimper.

"Understood?" Using her collar as leverage, Asuka shook her.

"Y-yes!"

Having gotten what she wanted, Asuka pushed her off. Instinctively, Keiko reached up to wipe gathering tears with the balls of her hand.

* * *

"This is not acceptable, Maya." Ritsuko folded her arms across her chest. "I am not looking for excuses."

"But the voltage levels are still too high," Maya tried to explain, but it seemed nothing she could say would have an effect on her superior.

From her position behind the two women, Misato remained silent. Beyond them she could see the two Evangelion, Unit-02 and Unit-08 locked down onto their berths facing one another. The cage itself was still very much under repair. Gantries and other improvised supports were plentiful.

"That is a minor detail. The exercise goes on as planned."

"Yes, ma'am. I understand, but I'm concerned for the safety of the pilots. An electrical surge…"

"The Faraday shield will take care of it. The tolerances are well within safety parameter for this kind of simulation."

Unlike basic synch-testing, simulations required a larger crew. Apart from the three women, a small group of technicians and operators sat on their consoles and other surveying stations filled the space. Hyuga and Aoba had the two main terminals in the middle.

Two monitors on either side showed video feeds from inside the entry-plug; Asuka was on the right, looking confident and ready for anything; Keiko was on the left, looking sickly.

That poor girl, Misato thought sympathetically.

Adding to her reservations and the general feeling of guilt for doing this to her, she was well aware that girl had problems when it came to walking in the Evangelion, yet Ritsuko was still expecting her to take part in a combat scenario? She had less than a week's proper training.

"Both pilots are in place, doctor," Aoba reported.

Ritsuko nodded. "Link the plugs to the simulation system," she ordered. "Activate all nerve connections. Stabilize A-10 synchronization protocol."

"Main links to the system have been engaged," Hyuga reported. "All nerve connections are secure."

"Hyuga, what is Unit-02's status?" Maya inquired.

He checked quickly. "All systems are nominal. Vital signs are stable. Neural links are clear. Synch-ratio holding at 55.5%."

Maya nodded. "What is Unit-08's status?"

This time, it was Aoba who answered.

"Systems are acceptable. Neural links are a little shaky. I have upper level disturbances. Synch-ratio is 21.6%." He turned to Ritsuko. "Doctor, the pilot's EKG is almost off the scale."

"She's nervous," Maya whispered as much to herself as to all those in the room.

"That won't do her any good," Ritsuko replied in a cold tone. "Open communication links to both pilots and feed the simulation protocol simultaneously. Enable the MAGI's graphics line and load all analog and digital data into the Eva's main system interface."

"Loading," Hyuga reported.

Unable to restrain herself any longer, Misato approached Ritsuko. Quietly, so as not to let her discontent be known to the entire crew, she said, "Explain to me again why you feel this is necessary."

Ritsuko gave her a sharp frown. "What's the first thing Shinji did when we got into the Eva?"

"We sent him into combat," Misato replied unhappily. She remembered very clearly, as a matter of fact.

"He displayed an incredible set of skills and huge natural talent under stress. Of all the pilots, he is probably the most naturally gifted. But it is very unlikely he could have done that through normal training methods."

Sadly, that was what Misato had thought. She disagreed with it wholeheartedly, and it must have shown on her face because Risuko added, "It's not like we are putting her in any actual danger."

Misato looked outside the window again. "No, just virtual danger."

"There is no making you happy is there?" Ritsuko said. "I could have sent them both out there and let them have at each other. It's much safer this way."

* * *

Had it been physically possible for Keiko's heart to burst out of her chest, there was no doubt in her mind that it would have. As it was she could feel it pounding against her ribcage with such strength that she had to force herself to breath in LCL to try and calm down. The smell and taste of the liquid made her stomach complain.

But the sense she got—that strange yet comforting presence that had begun to identify her experience in the Eva—was altogether different. If Unit-08 could have a soul, or a mind or thoughts, Keiko was somehow certain it would want her to be there. It was a soothing kind of warmth. Even welcoming at times.

When the light came on inside the plug and Ritsuko's face appeared hovering in the substance in front of her, Keiko almost jumped out of her command seat. She had forgotten they could do that.

"Okay, pay attention," Ritsuko's image said. "This is a simulator and it's important for you to understand that nothing here is real."

"Yes, ma'am," Keiko replied sheepishly. "I've got it."

"Now, the system has been calibrated to Unit-08's exact specifications. You will feel the same way as you would feel in it for real. The remote synchronization protocol will allow you to feel weight, gravity, inertia, pain..."

The brunette girl's eyes shot wide open. "P-pain?"

"It's not real. Your central nervous system has been connected to the Eva's through the A-10 connection, which those clips in your hair meant to enhance." Keiko reached absently and stoked one of her yellow connectors nestled on either side of her head "This allows you to control the Eva as you would your own body, but whatever the Eva feels you will also feel."

Keiko's throat was dry. She could no longer pretend she wasn't deadly afraid. "I'm not sure I like how that sounds."

"Technology is a wonderful thing. Get used to it."

The entry-plug was once again plunged into a half-darkness, only to be illuminated a second later by a ring of light that coursed the length of the cylindrical confines. The brunette girl closed her eyes as the ring passed over her and when she opened them again the empty space had been replaced with the canopy-like layout of the entry-plug's main observation window. She could see the city landscape outside.

"It would have been a lot simpler to have you sortie in Unit-08,**"** Ritsuko was explaining, "but since we are running on some constraints and because we can't afford any incidents, it was deemed safer if you went out on the simulator for the first time. Now, as you know, Eva units are primarily weapons of close quarters combat so pilots are usually also trained in self-defense skills."

"Close combat?" Keiko felt her stomach sink. "I thought it was just gonna be shooting the rifle."

"Don't worry. You won't see any actual combat. We will focus on motor skills and coordination for now."

"Oh-okay," the girl replied nervously.

Unit-08 had been placed on the easternmost end of a canyon of buildings, like those found in big cites. It was a virtual representation of downtown Tokyo-3, which no longer existed. On the opposite end of the canyon, Unit-02 was standing, arms on its hips and looking much like its pilot—really annoyed.

"As you are doubtlessly aware by now, the Eva moves as you move. All you have to do is focus on your movements and think about doing something. The Eva's systems will interpret your brain's electric impulses and respond accordingly," Ritsuko explained. "You don't have to physically perform the movement. Just think about how your brain would normally tell your body to move. For a start, try walking."

Keiko focused all her attention on her legs, trying to move them without moving them as Ritsuko said.

Unit-08 took a step forward. The white Evangelion was sluggishly, like a drunken demon. Keiko struggled to find her balance and she had only taken her third step before she lost all balance.

The eyeless monster fell like an old oak, with just as much thunder and commotion.

Asuka, who up to then had neglected to open a communication link to the other Evangelion, now did so with almost hilarious enthusiasm. Her face appeared in a window in the LCL. "What's the matter? You can't even make it walk?"

Keiko was too busy trying to bring Unit-08 back to its feet to answer her. This she finally did by leaning heavily against one of the nearby buildings, a corner of which crumbled under the weight.

"This is a waste of time."

"Be quiet, Asuka." The reply came not from the pilot of Unit-08, but from the Maya in the control room. Of all the people in NERV, Keiko liked her the most. "This is difficult enough for her as it is."

Asuka snickered. "I thought this was supposed to be a combat simulator." She narrowed her eyes. "I have better things to do with my time than sit here while the crybaby learns to walk."

"Be quiet."

"This is ridiculous."

Keiko managed to gain some stability as she pushed Unit-08 away from the building and used the weight of both her body and the Unit for balance. Everything felt heavy. It was like moving underwater and her muscles complained from the strain. And the fact that Asuka was gleefully taunting her non-stop didn't help.

"Damn it, Nagara, do something right for a change. It's not that hard. See?" In the distance, Unit-02 began doing a jig. "Easy."

Under other circumstance Keiko would have found it funny. But her sense of humor was pretty well shot. "I'm trying!"

Ritsuko's voice came back again. "All right, just remember that the Eva will respond to your brain not your body. Everything is regulated through electric impulses, which is what causes physical movements in the first place. You can close your eyes if you think that will help you concentrate."

"It's not that easy!" the brunette cried in frustration. She brought Unit-08 back to a standing position. On the other side of the canyon, she could see the red Evangelion had stopped dancing and was taping its foot on the ground.

"This is going nowhere," Asuka declared, apparently having had enough. "I'm not going to get stuck here all day because of you."

Keiko's brain failed to fully comprehend what happened next. A primal part of her subconscious simply awakened with horror as she saw Unit-02 spring from its position opposite her and cover the hundreds of yards between them in seconds.

She froze. And though something told her she ought to get out of the way, her body failed to respond. She was too afraid.

Maya screamed from the control room."Asuka!"

As Unit-02 closed the final yards to the white Evangelion it leaped into the air, spun like a gifted ballerina, and smashed into it feet first.

For Keiko, the impact was as if she had just collided with a concrete wall. She was thrown back into her seat such tremendous force that couldn't even scream. Frantically, she tried to move but something was pressing her body against the seat.

The impact had sent Unit-08 onto its back, and with Unit-02 straddling it, effectively pinning it with its weight, Keiko was rendered helpless.

"Asuka, knock it off!"

Keiko was in so much pain that it almost became a tangible thing. She panicked and screamed as she desperately tried to escape the weight placed on her body by the attacking Evangelion. She could think of nothing else to do. Nothing else mattered.

Above her, Unit-02 shrugged. "What? I'm not doing anything."

With all the oxygenated LCL forced out of her lungs, Keiko struggled for breath. Her body began convulsing and jerking, completely out of her control, as if an ancient built-in mechanism of survival suddenly had kicked in. Unit-08 mimicked her, making for a grotesque spectacle.

She managed to take one deep breath of the LCL and immediately felt her mouth fill with something else.

The sour taste of her own sick sent her into a fit of gagging. The brunette shook her head in desperation, tears running down her face like rivers and quickly dissolving into the LCL. She couldn't breath at all, nor could she scream anymore.

"Asuka, get off of her!" Misato commanded. "Now!"

Outside, Keiko could see Unit-02 towering over her through tear-clouded eyes. She reached out with a hand and attempted to claw at the thing but it was no more than a futile gesture of desperation. Her eyes started to roll over.

Ritsuko's voice joined the chaos. "Asuka!"

"I'm not doing anything!" Unit-2 stood up, easing the pressure. But the damage was done.

Keiko did not even realize she was no longer being pushed into her seat. The thought that she was going to die blocked out all others. She would have cried for her mother if she could have.

"Goddammit! Terminate the exercise! Sever all connections!"

Those were the last words the brunette girl heard before she slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

As soon as her feet hit the deck after climbing out of her entry-plug, Asuka found herself being grasped by the arm and turned hastily around. Confronted by Misato's angry glare, she opened her mouth to protest.

"Have you lost your mind?" Misato shook her before she could say anything, her voice rising to a pitch Asuka seldom heard. "What in the hell got into you?"

Asuka averted her face and tried to yank her arm away. "Let me go."

Misato tightened her grip, her fingers starting to hurt even through the material of her plugsuit. "God, Asuka, I would think you of all people--

"I only did what I was supposed to," Asuka responded as dispassionately as she could. But realizing that she couldn't escape Misato's grasp unless the older woman let her go she stopped trying.

"You were not supposed to hurt her!"

Some of the technicians were looking at them, their faces resentful as they went about their duties as discretely as they could. Other ignored them, yet even they showed sign of being uncomfortably keeping their distance.

Insulted and hurt, Asuka wanted to tell them all off. Instead, she settled for Misato. "It was a combat exercise, so if they didn't want any combat they shouldn't have had me there."

Misato pressed her lips together. Her scowl was so deep her eyebrows were practically touching together. Asuka got the sense it was taking all her willpower to keep from slapping her.

"Besides," the redhead continued, "I didn't try to hurt her or she'd be strapped to a life support machine right now. I didn't do anything to her. I just pinned her to the ground and you all act like I tried to kill her. How do you think she's going to do when an Angel comes?"

"That is beyond the point!" Misato pulled her by the arm, forcing the shorter teenager to look up at her. "You just showed incredible disregard for a fellow pilot's life! You could have killed her!"

"She's not a pilot, just an excuse for one," Asuka muttered, again finding herself unable to meet Misato's eyes.

"You could have killed her!"

"Could have. Didn't. Big difference."

Misato lifted her hand.

"Go ahead, do it!" Asuka yelled, already bracing herself for the blow. "Show everyone how you really feel about me!"

Far from giving her the satisfaction of pushing her over the edge, Misato lowered her hand, glowering at her with suppressed anger that made Asuka wondered how she could have stood to live with her for so long. "You are going to apologize."

"Make me!" Asuka yanked her arm, the prospect of such a humiliation lending her strength. Unwilling to let her go, Misato swiftly reached for her again. Asuka dodged, turning her body sideways slipped besides her. But she wasn't fast enough.

As the redhead tried to make her escape, Misato finally caught her arm again, this time from behind. "Yes, I will."

"Let me go!" Asuka squirmed violently.

Misato held fast. "No."

Like a mother whose child had misbehaved at school, she grudgingly led Asuka out of the cage. The redhead struggled and complained, launching more than a few curses her way, but it was of no avail.

Even the technicians who had ignored them before now turned their attention to the spectacle unfolding in front of them. Asuka was furious, a deep red staining her cheeks from anger as much as from the effort of trying to free herself from the iron grip. Misato was determined, and she had seldom despised her much for it.

The intense struggle ended only when Misato opened the door to the infirmary and forced Asuka inside with a push. By then the redhead was yelling at the top of her lungs, and barely noticed where she was. Misato finally let her go and she immediately rounded on her, ready to keep up the fight.

"Excuse me."

Asuka spun furiously towards the voice, hands clenched into fist. "Shut—"

Ritsuko's cold gaze was practically a demand for her to watch her mouth. Though Misato might perhaps refrain from hitting her out of a sense of propriety because of her young age, Asuka wouldn't put it past the fake-blonde doctor to have her across her knees and spank her in front of everyone present.

Which, the redhead realized, included more than the two women.

The shaken form of Keiko was perched on one of the examination tables , her legs hanging over the edge, a breathing mask over her nose and mouth. Her posture was badly slumped, head hanging low.

The pilot's infirmary was a small room equipped only for emergency triage, enough to stabilize a wounded pilot so they could be moved to more suitable facilities. There were only three examination tables in all, each topped with a thin white mattress and separated by curtains hanging from metal rods.

Asuka did not take another step, repulsed that she had to be in same room as the rest of them. Misato, however, brushed past her and approached the yellow-clad pilot. "How are you feeling?" She placed her hand gently on her shoulder.

Weakly, Keiko looked up at her. "Better. Thank you."

Misato smiled at her in a way that made Asuka resent her even more. How could she not? This was the same woman who had never bothered coming to see her in the hospital, and cared only when it was convenient to her.

"That's good." Misato turned her head back to the redhead. "Asuka here has something to say to you."

"No I don't," Asuka retorted shortly.

Misato sighed. She gave Ritsuko a tap on the shoulder. "Lets go. They should sort this out among themselves."

"There's nothing to sort out!" Asuka yelled as they filed to the exit. But when she made an attempt to leave with them Misato stopped her, pointing a finger at Keiko.

"After you apologize you can leave."

With that they were gone, the door slamming shut behind them, and Asuka was left with the person she liked least in the whole world right now. But far from demanding a apology, which Misato seemed to think was her due, Keiko dropped her head and lay back on the paper covered mattress.

Her movements were slow and heavy. Her breath fogged the plastic mask so it was impossible to tell what her mouth was doing, but the rest of her face was lax, the corners of her eyes drooping.

Well, Asuka thought angrily, she was trapped here. She might get a few things off her chest.

"Misato wants me to apologize," she growled as she stalked towards the other girl. "But I won't. You don't deserve it. I didn't do anything, and I'm sick of people yelling at me because of you. I'm sick of been blamed and I'm sick of you. You are not a pilot, so why should I treat you as one? You are just someone they put in the Eva, God knows why, and expect it to work."

Keiko allowed her head to roll to the side, her eyes full of some dark emotion. "You are right," she whispered. "I am not a pilot. I fooled myself into thinking I was. I thought I could do it and that it was the best thing for me, but I…was just being stupid."

"What happened in the simulator is nothing," Asuka pointed out shrilly. "What do you think will happen when you have to fight an Angel? Do you think they will take pity on you, or that they will stop so you can catch your breath? They will rip you apart." She twisted her hands together in opposite directions, like someone breaking the spine of a fish. "They will look into your head and rip you to shreds."

"I…know, but…what can I do?" There was a quiet tone of despair in those words, utter hopelessness. "I'm trying my best."

"You should quit."

The brunette shook her head. "I can't. I don't want to let everyone down."

Asuka thought that was the most ridiculous thing she had ever head. "Is it worth getting killed over?"

Keiko shook her head. "There's something else." She hesitated. "There's … something that I sense in the Eva. Something there with me. It's like no other feeling. I don't know. I feel ... secure. Almost…comforted. I don't know how to explain it, but I know I can't quit. I long for that feeling..."

A squirming worm made its way through Asuka's chest. She knew exactly what the other girl was talking about. It was something she no longer felt in her own Eva and she wanted desperately to do so again. "And you think that makes it worthwhile?"

Why was she saying that? Why did she feel like she needed to hurt this girl any more?

"I don't know." Keiko closed her eyes. "I really don't know. I wish I could quit. There is so much pain, too much…suffering. And I know I'm asking to get hurt. I want to quit, honestly, but I just…can't."

"You wouldn't last five minutes in a fight, you know. Eva pilots are a team. We may hate things about each other, but in combat we know we can trust each other with our lives. I wouldn't want to get caught in a fight with you by my side, though. You are danger to yourself and those around you."

"I know, _I know._" Keiko's voice began to quiver. "You've been right about me all along. I…should have never accepted to pilot the Eva, but what was I supposed to do? Everyone was so proud of me. Miko, she said this is what my mother would want me to do..." She lifted her arms and placed her hands over her face to hide her tears. "Mommy..."

Though she didn't want to be sympathetic, that last statement opened a deep, badly scarred gash within Asuka's subconscious. "Your mother?"

"I… I ..." the brunette stuttered between weeps, "She would have wanted me to pilot the Eva. She spent all her life working on it and ... and I know … it killed her in the end. But...I just thought it was what she wanted for me. I thought that it would make her happy."

"We make our own lives, not the lives others want for us." Stop, a part of Asuka screamed as she spoke. Just stop now. Please stop. "If you depend on others, then you are weak, because you can't live for yourself. It's always what others want and what they impose on you. Even if it's your own mother."

"I didn't want a life," Keiko whimpered, drawing her legs up onto the table and curling up on her side, trembling. "I…wanted to die. I just wanted to die. I didn't sleep or eat or nothing…even if I was a little girl, I remember what it felt like. There was nothing in the world for me. I wanted to…just die. I … I ..."

There was so much pain in her words that they could almost have come from Asuka instead. She understood then that they were more similar than she would ever dare imagine. But they were different in the way they dealt with their loss. While Asuka had spent her life striving to be acknowledged, Keiko had seemed to just lingered in the aftermath of her mother's death.

Asuka had once felt like dying too, several times in fact, but there was always something that kept her going.

No, not always. She had wandered the streets for days. She had starved herself. She had stripped naked and climbed into that bathtub. And she had waited, her life meaningless, her pride destroyed, her whole being slowly slipping from reality.

"I miss my mommy!" Keiko screamed as she wrapped her head in her arms, her body a tight yellow ball shaking uncontrollably on the mattress. "I want my mommy back!"

The mask of anger and indifference that had tightened Asuka's features evaporated.

"That's why I can't quit…the sensation in the Eva, it's like it used to feel when my mommy held me…and she would whisper in my ear that everything was going to be fine."

Asuka watched silently as the girl disintegrated emotionally before her eyes, hearing the sounds of sorrow and hopelessness that she had so many times heard coming from her own self.

"I can't quit, I can't quit, I can't quit!" Keiko began repeating increasingly more hysterically. Her hands were clutching her head so tightly that she would have likely dug her nails into her scalp had she not been wearing gloves. "I wish I had died back then! I don't belong here! I'm no better than her! I should have died with her! I… I can't! I can't!"

And suddenly Asuka remembered Shinji too. She looked at the back of her right hand but couldn't see the bruises she knew were there through the material of her plugsuit.

Keiko Nagara was so much like the rest of them, and that elevated her in Asuka's mind; certainly beyond her ability to hold a petty grudge against her. She could still not find it in herself to forgive her, but maybe ...

The redhead didn't feel like she was moving until she had placed her hand on the other girl's head, leaning over her, and stroked her hair in a gesture of unthinkable compassion just a few minutes ago.

Keiko's stared up at her, eyes shaking, tearful. And then she did something Asuka did not expect. She flung her arms open and enveloped her in a hug. Asuka stiffened, unable to return the gesture. But she thought of how she had found herself on that balcony with Shinji, a weepy, desperate mess.

Shinji was right. It was the same pain. His and hers and Keiko's—ruined children, every one of them.

* * *

His chores finished, Shinji sat on the small bench out on the balcony while listening to his S-DAT and stared at the streaks of orange growing in the late afternoon sky, painted there as if by the brush of an artist on canvas. Some of the laundry hung on the clothesline above his head, items either too large or too delicate for the washing machine. It was underwear mostly: tighty-whiteys and sets of bras and panties from two different owners.

"I'm home."

He recognized the voice immediately, but was almost afraid to acknowledge it. He knew that she had been called into NERV, and that didn't bode well despite her best attempts to reassure him. "H-how was it?"

"That baby Nagara is the pilot," Asuka said casually as she walked out onto the balcony. Stooping down to avoid a towel hanging overhead, she went to lean her against the rail and folded her arms. "Her, of all people. Can you imagine?"

Her tone was the usual haughty shrill, but not matched by the tense expression on her face. Her posture was oddly withdrawn as well, protective.

"I can't image anyone going through this," Shinji said, allowing his head to drop.

"I think they must have made some kind of mistake," Asuka hissed. "A pilot is supposed to be a fighter, not a little baby."

In his mind Shinji tried to picture the quiet, unassuming Keiko Nagara as an Eva pilot. There was quite possibly nobody worse. At least Hikari carried some authority about her, and even Kensuke would be better suited; but Keiko was more … like Shinji, with breasts. "Is she alright?"

Asuka hesitated. "Yeah." Shinji didn't say anything so she continued. "See? The Eva didn't go berserk, nobody died, no big deal. I don't understand why you were so worried."

"Yeah, I guess you are right," he said with a sigh.

Asuka nodded animatedly. "Of course I'm right! But you just can't help it, can you? Mister Worry-wort. You are just like Hikari. I bet she knew too and didn't tell me. That's probably why—well, I took her advice." She paused then pouted. "So what are you listening to anyway?"

"Ah, it's Beethoven."

"Ewww!" Asuka grimaced. "Why are you listening to that? Beethoven is all doom and gloom. It's depressing. He even wrote a song for Napoleon, did you know?"

"I guess even Beethoven can make a mistake." Whether that was really the case, Shinji wasn't sure. He listened to Beethoven because he liked it. Because it was beautiful music. That was all the reason he needed.

"I would say he was just too tortured to write good music," Asuka said. "Too dark, you know. Grim."

"Wouldn't you be? He was loosing his hearing and he feared that when he went deaf he would loose what made him special." A hint of seriousness crossed his eyes; was he still talking about Beethoven? That sounded vaguely like someone else he knew. A certain redhead, maybe.

"I still think you should listen to something more upbeat," Asuka said, oblivious, her tone downright smarmy. "Do you have any Tchaikovsky or Vivaldi? Now there's some music you could have a party to."

"I have the Four Seasons on a disc somewhere," Shinji said. "But it doesn't get anymore upbeat than Ode to Joy."

"Oh, well, that was an exception to the typical dreary Beethoven. It's a good piece. Do you have it somewhere?"

It was embarrassing to seem so predictable. "Yeah, I'm listening to it."

"What?" Asuka pushed herself away from the rail and snatched one of Shinji's earphones as she sat down next to him on the bench. "I want to listen."

He watched her for a moment, bemused, then turned his head away.

If someone had told him that she would have ended up sitting with her like this, listening to Beethoven's Ninth at sunset, Shinji would have said they were crazy. But now that it was actually happening it was strange. The music was soothing, yet not as soothing as Asuka's presence.

He found it hard to believe, and was somewhat afraid that Asuka would break it off for some reason undecipherable to anyone but her. She used to do that, and then pushed him away and went to suffer alone. As she sat here, holding the earphone snugly in place, it was impossible to think that she was the same troubled girl he'd known for what seemed like an eternity.

Shinji was grateful he had someone like Asuka by his side. She was his opposite in every sense; she was strong where he was weak; she was outspoken where he was shy; she was charming, though her temper could be something of an acquired taste, where he was just not.

Slowly, however, his fear receded. There was a time when he would have been justifiably frightened by her temper, but now it appeared so distant, leaving nothing else to frighten him. She was there because she wanted to be with him.

For a moment Shinji wondered what was going on in that pretty head of hers. He was not going to ask. If Asuka needed him to know she would tell him; he was confident he had earned her sincerity. And she had earned his.

Their eyes never met, partly because the last time they shared a moment like this they ended up in each other's arms, sharing a sensation they both welcomed and failed to understand. Instead, they stared at the crimson horizon.

Somewhere along the way the Third Child began quietly humming the Ode to Joy and closed his eyes. Before long it was complimented by words.

"Freude, schöner Götterfunken..."

Shinji was surprised by the voice, though it was so familiar it seemed he could never stop hearing it. But he had never heard Asuka actually sing anything. She was out-of-tune and the words didn't make any sense to him, being in a foreign language, but it was still one of the most beautiful things he'd ever heard.

" … wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben..."

And it was at this very moment when he realized that Asuka was holding his hand.

"… diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt ..."

* * *

**To be continued. **


	10. Sickness

Notes: as always, thanks to all the people who make this possible. Arkiel and Big D for helping pre-read, Nemo for the late-night feedback, Jimmy and some of the guys a Evageeks and the people who take the time to write reviews. This chapter turned to be a little longer than intended but there was a lot of stuff going on, as you can probably tell by reading.

As an aside, the next chapter is already done so the wait between chapters should be short. Chapters 12 and 13 should be easy enough. As of right now I am aiming to have the finale, creatively (yes, that is sarcasm) titled "The End of Genocide" in January. Haven't decided if it will be a single massive update or split into three acts or so. I don't know yet.

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended **

"**Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live" --Norman Cousins.**

**Genocide 0:10 / Sickness**

**

* * *

  
**

The first salvo from the bullpup rifle sailed wide to the left of the target, as did the second and third ones. Keiko allowed her finger to let go of the trigger and took a deep breath. It was getting frustrating.

"Hold your fire," Maya ordered over the radio. "Let me re-calibrate the system. I think I can compensate for your pull."

Keiko waited. In the pre-simulation briefing she was told that this particular scenario had been recreated from one of the previous engagement and the target was one of the old Angels. The creature looked like a giant torso, no legs, no arms—except for what looked like rolls of toilet paper—and a small head lodged so low between its shoulders that wasn't really a head, just a face.

Furthermore, this Angel, she had been told, had ripped through the Geo-Front, torn Unit 02 apart, forced Unit 00 into a suicidal attack and was ultimately stopped by Unit 01—eaten, as Maya put it. Keiko was horrified; it had taken three Evangelions to destroy it. What was she going to do if they sent her out to fight something like that?

No, she decided. They wouldn't send her out. It would serve no purpose that she could think off; she had barely just learned to walk properly, let alone fight.

The weapon tests were difficult and tiring, but she preferred them to the synchronization ones. Firing the guns, rifles, missile launchers and other assorted weaponry kept her mind busy and prevented the emotions from overwhelming her.

Maybe it was the adrenaline or something else. Whatever it was, she preferred it to quietly sitting on the entry-plug with nothing else to do for hours but recall painful memories of her past. The entry-plug was like a beacon for all the things she wanted to forget, and at the same time it made her long for something. It was a familiar sensation, but it was that one thing which triggered the emotions. She had never felt that way since her mother died.

As painful as it was, admitting how she felt to Asuka had seemed to change their relationship. Where before the redhead had shown open hostility towards her, now she seemed much more willing to tolerate her lack of talent. And she had even complimented her on how good her yellow plugsuit looked on her.

Such a little thing, yet after craving the redhead's approval for so long she thought it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her.

"All done," Maya's voice informed. "Try again. Aim a little low this time. You seem to have a tendency to raise the barrel unconsciously."

Keiko squeezed her left trigger. The gun ejected a volley of projectiles, creating a thin arch on the screen as the virtualsuperheated, depleted uranium shells traced their trajectory from the gun's sleek barrel to their intended destination. For a second the young pilot thought she had missed again, but when the salvos approached their target, the downward ellipse of the arch became steeper as if the pull of gravity had suddenly increased.

"Nice shot!" Maya called out, her voice full with excitement. "A direct hit!"

Keiko almost smiled, the feeling of accomplishment swelling inside her chest. Maybe she was not so worthless after all.

* * *

The sounds coming from the bathroom were like no other sounds Shinji had ever heard Asuka make. Everyone got sick every once in a while; she just did it so rarely that it seemed her immune system was made of the same stuff layered as armor over the Evas.

Knowing that he would embarrass her by asking if she needed anything, and weighing that against his desire to help her if he could, he found himself hesitating. She would probably get mad at him for asking anyway.

He felt rather helpless, standing in the kitchen and listening to her throw up. Pen-pen had found a niche between his legs, his rubbery feathers brushing against his bare skin to urge him forward. His beak was turned up expectantly. He might just be a penguin, but Shinji had the same reluctance to meet his eyes as he did anyone else.

Misato was at work so, as it often happened, the two teenagers were alone for the night. Calling her was not a good idea. There was nothing she could do from work, and mostly because she would tell Shinji what he already knew—that if he wanted to do something to help Asuka he needed to get over himself and help her. That it was up to him.

Finally, the brown-haired pilot sighed and knocked on the bathroom door. The sounds stopped, and then the stiff accordion-style door was thrown loudly open.

"What do you want?" Asuka grumbled, her voice harsh and hoarse, wiping the back of her left hand over her mouth. Her other hand was pressed gingerly against her lower stomach. Unlike her usual skimpy house wear, she had on a loose gown that made it to her knees. Her scowl was deep and her eyes bristling, but there was no denying she looked sick.

Sheepish as always, Shinji hesitated. "Um, I was just, you know, wondering if you were alright."

That just seemed to piss her off. "What? Are you stupid? Do I look alright to you? I'm a walking fucking cramp and I can't stop feeling like I have a giant balloon in my stomach! Do you think _that's _alright?"

"Well," he turned his face away, "maybe you shouldn't eat so much junk food anymore."

Asuka slapped him over the head. "Idiot! It's got nothing to do with what I eat. It's the nausea from my period!" She slammed the door shut again, then yelled from within, "Go enjoy having a penis!"

"Oh," Shinji blinked, dumbfounded. He had assumed it was food related. He hadn't even thought of this. Asuka was a girl, after all, and girls... "Yuck."

But as he turned to leaveher to deal with her more womanly problem, Pen-pen bumped him insistently on the back of his legs.

"What?" Shinji looked down, lifting his foot so as not to step on the penguin. "You heard her. I can't help her with that."

Pen-pen didn't budge. Instead, he pecked at Shinji's foot.

The Third Child stepped back, wondering if somehow Asuka's moodiness had transplanted itself onto him. "Hey! What was that for?"

Pen-pen gave him a firm look that indicated surly frustration, because just asking such a question was obviously an act of stupidity. While Shinji didn't doubt animals could be perceptive, maybe even more than humans, this little guy defied belief. And he lacked the ability to know when to give it up.

"Fine," Shinji sighed, turning again to the bathroom door. "But you are the one who's going to explain to Misato why I have a red hand print on my face." He knocked again. "Asuka?"

The only response was a loud heaving noise.

Shinji swallowed awkwardly. "Asuka, do you want me to fix you something? Maybe some tea? At least it'll help settle your stomach."

"Yeah," she belched, "or you could come in here and hold my hair out of my face while I try not to puke. Up to you."

Her voice was so weird he couldn't tell if she was being serious. He hoped not. "Tea it is then."

So it was; he pulled a teapot out of the cupboard, quickly boiled some water in the microwave as it was faster than using the stove, opened at box of teabags and dipped two of them into the water. With perfect timing, Asuka emerged shuffling wearily from the bathroom, still clutching her lower stomach. Because she was not using her neural connectors, thick locks of her hair stuck to her face; she seemed not to care.

"Here." Shinji poured the steaming hot tea into a cup decorated with the NERV logo as Asuka pulled out a chair and sat. He poured himself a cup as well, figuring it'd make it easier on her if she had someone to drink with.

Asuka took a tentative sip. "Men have no idea how easy they have it" she grumbled. "Every month is the same thing. It's like my body decides it doesn't like me anymore. My mood goes to hell—" she gave him a warning look. "Not a word, Third Child."

Of course he would never say it, but he did think it. He'd be safe as long as she couldn't read his mind. He sat next to her, tea cup in hand, taking a sip.

"Well?" Asuka's voice turned bossy. "What do you have to say for yourself, and for men in general?"

Shinji bowed his head. "We are very sorry."

Her morose expression became peppered by a hint of humor, which made Shinji feel glad he could get such a reaction even when she was clearly not in the mood.

People, wrongly, tended to think she had no sense of humor. She did. It was just hard to make her laugh. But Shinji could, some times completely unintentionally. Strangely, it was one of those things that would seem ordinary in anyone else.

"Listen, Shinji, I need to know something," the redhead began again, without looking at him this time. "If we weren't Eva pilots—I mean, if we were just two normal people with normal problems, would you still put up with me?"

Shinji was confused by the sudden change of topic. Her seriousness seemed to come out of nowhere. "I-I don't understand."

"Naturally," Asuka scoffed. "What I mean is, even if there were nothing to make us special, even if we had nothing else, would you still, you know, be there for me?"

"I think I would," Shinji replied, uncertain.

Asuka narrowed her eyes. "You think?"

Shinji quickly corrected himself. "I know I would."

"Even if there was nothing to make me special?" the redhead pushed the issue. It would have been impossible for Shinji not to notice that she replaced the word _us_ with _me._

He was not entirely comfortable with the answer, but it was obvious enough that not saying it would be even worse. "Y-you don't need the Eva to be special," he assured her and attempted a smile. "I think … you are special enough on your own."

"Pervert, pick-up lines don't work with me."

Shinji suddenly panicked, thinking she had misunderstood him. "I was not—I didn't mean to sound like that, Asuka. Sorry," he attempted and apology. "I was … just ..."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," Asuka brushed him off. She probably knew him well enough by now to realize Shinji would never intentionally try a line like that with less than honorable purposes. He must have had a momentary mental blackout or something.

Neither of them said anything for a while. They sat and drank tea from their cups in the silent kitchen, Pen-pen watching them both as though they were part of a movie or a play.

Finally, Shinji gave in to the nag of his curiosity. "Asuka?"

"What?" Her cup was on her lips.

The Third Child hesitated. "Why did you ask me that?"

The German redhead seemed to consider his question for an eternity, rolling it in her mind and wondering if she should answer. For the first time in the night, their eyes locked on one another.

"My synch-ratio dropped today," Asuka said at last. "Almost ten points."

She didn't have to say anything else; the last time Asuka's synch-ratio had dropped, her life had become a nightmare. Shinji could sense the dread in her voice, the fear that flashed in those sapphire orbs of hers, and the thought frightened him.

Asuka was the strongest person he knew, maybe that had ever or would ever know. In a sense she was his example of what it was to be strong, the foundation of his own strength. He would stand as long as Asuka stood with him. But if she collapsed he wouldn't be able to keep himself together.

Shinji remembered the words he'd spoken to a comatose Asuka, so long ago it seemed, the pain and desperation. He felt a chill as the image of the redhead in the hospital bed hit him. He didn't want to remember her like that. He didn't want it to happen again.

"Something's wrong with me." Asuka set aside her cup. "That's why they keep doing so many tests. You've been back what, once? Since the last Angel? I spent almost a week doing tests**. **And then almost every other day. What does that tell you?"

Shinji muttered something, and took another sip of his tea trying to buy himself some time. If anything, this was worse than hearing her talk about her period.

"Idiot, it tells you they know something's wrong but they don't know what. Maybe that's why it doesn't feel like it used to. Maybe that's why my synch-ratio is dropping. Maybe—ow!" She keeled over onto the table, clutching her belly. "Oh, God. This isn't fair!"

Shinji was already getting up from his chair. "I'm calling Misato."

It only took a furious glare and a snarl from her to stop him. And it only took a second, for she immediately rushed back to the bathroom, leaving him standing there and feeling helpless yet again.

* * *

They sat at the small living room table and ate dinner. Miko had cooked, something she apparently did only once every blue moon, or so she had said.

"I appreciate the dinner, girls," Nakayima said as he set his chopsticks on the edge of the plate. "I can't remember the last time I had something this good."

"It's okay, Agent Nakayima," Miko replied with a beaming smile, though that gesture did very little to alleviate the generally glum mood. "I was not gonna have you over just to offer you cheap booze."

"Well, good food and booze." Nakayima raised his tiny cup of sake. "It's always a good combination."

The trivial exchange seemed only to annoy the younger girl sitting with them because she uttered a huff. It had all been Miko's idea, of course, and she had been rather adamant about it. Keiko did not seem to agree with her in the slightest. The look on her face had first been one of impatience, the sort Nakayima would expect from someone reluctant, but slowly it had turned into a kind of poorly veiled resentment towards him.

Nakayima could hardly blame her. They had never met, and for him to come here, a total stranger, intruding on her their personal lives was the height of impropriety. Miko had done her best to lighten the atmosphere, making small talking, trying to get Keiko talking about being an Eva pilot. The girl refused to take the bait. Most of her answers were yes and nos and very little in between.

Whatever impulse had driven him to accept Miko's invitation now seemed vain. Keiko did not want him here, even if her guardian did. Likely, the only reason she was sitting here with them was because Miko had told her to and she was too accommodating to refuse.

Eventually even Miko realized this and turned her attention to Nakayima, ignoring her completely.

"You're out?" Miko said, eying his empty sake cup. She reached and picked up the bottle, tipping over onto the cup. It too was empty. "Don't worry, there's more in the kitchen.

Unlike Nakayima, who was wearing his black uniform, neither girl had bothered to dress up. So as Miko stood and walked over to the kitchen, he couldn't help notice how tightly her shorts fit. The cotton fabric rode up slightly from the upper parts of her thighs, revealing a little more flesh than intended. His gaze lingered on her just a little too long.

"She likes you, you know," Keiko said gloomily, picking at her food. "It's not like she brings home every guy she meets."

"Sorry, if I had known I'd be so bad for you—"

"Would you have cared?" She brought up her eyes. "You like her too. And people don't just go into other people's homes when they haven't even met them. But you are here, aren't you?"

Before he could chance a reply, Miko returned carrying a fresh bottle of sake and resumed her place at the table.

"So, Keiko-chan," she began, her latest attempt to break the ice between her, Keiko and their guess as she poured the sake. "You haven't told me. What's it like being an Eva pilot?"

"Fine," Keiko replied somewhat grudgingly. "What's it supposed to be like?"

"I don't know. Maintenance crews don't have that much contact with the pilots."

If there was any doubt about Keiko's expression being resentful before, it became perfectly clear now. "Yeah, I've noticed."

Miko turned to Nakayima. "What about you, Agent Nakayima? Ever met any of the pilots?"

"When are you going to stop calling him that?" Keiko pipped up angrily. "He has an actual name, doesn't he? You already brought him home. The only reason you haven't introduced him to your parents is because you can't!"

Miko heaved a heavy sigh and for a moment seemed about to reproach her ward. Then she gave Nakayima an apologetic look. "Please excuse her, Junichi."

Nakayima shook his head. "It's okay. And no, I've never met a pilot before," he admitted, focusing on the younger girl's features. The brunette wore her hair tied in a ponytail, but certain locks still managed to wash delicately across her face. Her eyes were fixed, brimming with anger. "But I have to say I hope they are all as good as you."

Keiko laughed—the sort of high-pitched laugh people made when they really wanted to cry. "Don't be ridiculous."

"She's too modest" Miko patted her on the back, but still looking at Nakayima. "I think it's a good thing, and she should be proud of herself."

"There is nothing to be proud of," Keiko whispered harshly, brushing Miko's hand off her.

She'd had enough. Picking herself up and leaving her dinner unfinished on her table, she headed for her room. Her shoulders were slumped and she dragged her bare feet across the floor with uncertain lethargy.

"Are you going to bed already?" Miko called out, eyes following her.

Keiko shut the door behind her as she entered her room without saying a word.

After a moment of heavy silence, Miko's shoulders sagged visibly as she brought dejected her gaze to Nakayima. "She's not always like this," she offered as a way of excuse, reaching out to her glass. The agent understood the gesture and poured her some sake.

"Well, we all have our good days and bad days," he said.

"It's not like that." Miko moved the glass to her lips and took a short sip. "I think it's this place. It brings out the worse in people. Before we came here, she was such a happy girl. You know how kids can be. She was so full of life, so eager to live on, but now … I think I should have never brought her here."

"You did what you thought was best," Nakayima said, drinking from his own glass. "You talk about her being a kid, but you are not much older yourself, are you?"

"I'm nineteen," she said, sounding like the sorriest nineteen-year-old in the face of the earth.

"I'm twenty-six and I can be pretty childish—well, when I'm not busy getting shot. The point is that you expect too much of yourself. You are young and shouldn't worry too about this kind of thing. If something really bothers her and she wants to talk about it, she'll come to you. If not, then she'll get over it on her own."

"You would make a really bad parent, you know that, right?" Miko said, moving her cup absently in a circle over the table surface. "Children never talk about what bothers them."

Nakayima narrowed his eyes. "I know, which is why I never intend to have any," he said. "I don't need the burden."

"Children are not a burden, Junichi. They are a blessing."

"To each their own, I guess," the agent said, finishing the last of the bottle. "So tell me, how is it that you became her guardian?"

Miko considered his question for a few minutes before replying, as if wondering if she really wanted to open that old vault of memories. "I met Keiko about six years ago when her mother brought her to Germany for the first time. My mom and hers were good friends so naturally we had to get along. I think she was eight at the time. We used to spend a lot of time together, since our mothers were always working. She was—still is like a little sister to me. I once even took her skating in the Winter Garden in Berlin and bought her coffee."

Nakayima could tell she was lightly buzzed. He raised an eyebrow. "Coffee?"

Miko shrugged and ran a hand through her dark blond hair. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyway, a year later Keiko's mother got transferred to Russia. She died in some weird lab accident. The details were never made public, but it involved the Eva somehow. My mom decided then that we would take her in with us. It was much better than allowing her to be placed with foster parents."

"It's always the children who suffer the most," Nakayima said apologetically. "One more reason not to have any."

"How could anyone be so cute and yet be such a jerk?" Miko said, leaning with her elbows on the table and fiddling the empty glass with her fingers.

He was truly, honestly surprised. "Cute?"

She paid him no attention. "Think what you will, but I should tell you that I enjoyed the time we spent together after that. My own mother was never there, but I had Keiko. I didn't miss her when she was working. She became like a stranger and secluded herself in her job. She died a week after I turned eighteen. I didn't cry at her funeral, though. I ran out of tears long before that."

There was silence after she was done. "So now you know," she spoke again when almost a full minute had passed. "Would it be too much if I asked for your story?"

"I..." Nakayima began, thinking about what he would say. He surely couldn't let her know too much, if he let her know anything at all. She wouldn't understand, he decided. She was too different, too honest. It would be dangerous and painful.

Painful—the thought hit him right there. He had never told anyone because it brought him pain. People knew what was on the files, but he had never willingly given away any of it. Death, war, those things left deep scars, and were still not as bad as knowing that he had broken then heart of the one man who ever believed in him.

The minstrel boy had gone to war, and what he found was far too horrifying to imagine. And by the time he realized it, it was already too late to go back. That single, stupid act of defiance had cost him his whole life, the regard of his father, the love of his family, his future, everything. Lost.

And that was before he became involved with the Ministry of the Interior.

What was he supposed to tell her? Here was someone who actually wanted to be close to him, yet it was such an alien feeling he had long forgotten what to do with it.

From the moment they met in one of NERV's cafeterias he thought she was an odd girl. There was an unrestrained openness, an almost cruel honesty that he couldn't block out. She was not like anyone he had met before.

"Well?" Miko insisted, staring at him.

Something stuck inside his chest, like a lever prying open an lock. And as much as he tried to recall excuses and justifications, in the end he told her the whole sad, complicated story.

* * *

The rag doll hung on the end of the noose. It swung symmetrically, tracing a slow circle in the air just underneath it. Asuka followed its every movement with the most childish mindlessness, her eyes moving back and forth, looking yet not really seeing. She smiled, a grin of satisfaction, because she hated the doll with every part of her being. It had taken the most precious thing away from her, the person she loved most in all the world. And for that it deserved to hang.

She could still hear her voice, as painfully and clearly as she ever did watching her in that hospital bed, talking to the doll. "Asuka darling, don't look at that girl. She'll yell at you." The doll remained silent, staring with eyes made out of buttons.

Asuka hated it so much. "I am your daughter!" a high-pitched voice cried, full of anger and hurt, and the desperate wish not to be ignored any more.

But the voice did ignore her. "Asuka, you mustn't complain or Mama won't love you anymore."

"I am your daughter!"

"Asuka, you must be a good girl."

Asuka pressed her open palm against her chest, while her eyes filled with rage. "I am your daughter! Not that doll!"

The voice became stern. "Asuka, you must do what Mama says."

"I am not a doll!" Asuka's words echoed through the gloom, as they had so often in that hospital room. But she was no longer the child she had once been, watching helplessly as her mother slipped away from reality. No. Now she was a grown up. She was mature and strong.

"Asuka, you mustn't be mean or people won't like you."

The Second Child squeezed her eyes shut, her hands clenching into fists. "I am not a doll!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "I don't care if people like me! I will do what I want because I can, not because I want them to like me!"

But when she opened her eyes, the hanging doll was gone. Instead, the redhead saw an image of herself in the entry-plug. She was curled into a tight ball, sobbing uncontrollably.

"No … don't make me look. Don't make me see those awful memories," the figure with her form begged. Asuka snarled at herself and couldn't believe that the broken voice had been hers. "Kaji, help me. It's defiling my mind … it's ..."

The redhead felt ill. Like her mother's final days in the hospital, she remembered this all too well. How could that have been her? She had promised never to cry and never to need anyone, but that had all changed that day. If loosing her mother was a wound that would never heal, this invasion—this rape was an infection that had no cure.

She was reduced to her most basic, her most painful. Deep beneath the haughty and harsh exterior, they was how she really was.

The figure kept on crying. Tears of anger, hate and desperation reddened her cheeks.

Then a new voice. "You promised. You promised never to cry. You promised never to need anyone."

The real Asuka shook her head desperately. "No! I don't need anyone!"

"You won't even hold me," her own voice whispered back. The night of their kiss, the first kiss of her young, lonely life, she had wanted so badly for him to hold her. That he hadn't made her sick; made her realize that she was a vile and hateful harridan—it was the only explanation. She was so plainly desperate and hurt and needed him, and yet he had just ...

She couldn't help it. "I don't need …"

"Thank you … for caring." Those words made her stop and gasp. "Promise that you'll never hurt me."

Asuka couldn't take it anymore, burying her face in her hand and struggling with the urge to cry again, her body hunched over. She felt pathetic, sad, sick to her heart. It wasn't like she had asked for him to care. It wasn't like she wanted to care about him. It had just happened, and it wasn't her fault.

The voice began streaming through her mind. "Why won't you look at me?" it called in an angry tone she so often heard coming from herself. "Look at me!"

"Asuka, don't look at that girl," another voice warned.

Overwhelmed, the German girl cried, her face still hidden, "I am your daughter!"

"I hate you, too!" a third voice, horrifyingly like Shinji's, said. "And I hope you die!"

Asuka lifted her eyes and from between her fingers saw the boy standing in front of her. His face was blank and his eyes were empty. "Are you stupid?" her voice said, though his lips were moving.

Although she had used that insult a thousand times, it hit her like a ton of bricks. Did she really sound that cruel? That hateful? "Shinji..."

"I hope you die," the voice repeated.

Then Asuka heard her own voice again. "How does it feel when you pilot your Eva?"

"It's … empty," the redhead mumbled, almost incoherently.

"Mama, look at me!"

Asuka heard a new voice screaming from behind her—the voice of her youth, the voice she had outgrown on her way to becoming a woman. She slowly turned and as soon as her brain processed the image her eyes widened with horror.

And she saw herself hanging from the noose, like the doll had only moments before. Her body was limp as it swung there, her feet slowly oscillating from side to side with a gentle, pendulum-like motion. It was wearing the red plug-suit, which made it look as if she were covered with blood.

"Look at me!" the voice shrieked, even louder than before.

Asuka didn't. She fell on her knees and allowed her head to sink between her shoulders. "No!" she cried, fear and hopelessness seeping into her mind. "No, no, no, no ..."

The hanging girl opened her eyes and was immediately replaced with the doll. "Why won't you look at me?"

It was then that Asuka felt the hands reaching for her. Dozens of them. Grabbing at her body. In a sudden flurry of desperation she did all she could to fight them, but was overwhelmed. They pinned her down, grasping her head, her hair, her arms, her legs, holding her open. They were all around her, like mad ghosts, pulling her downwards so that she couldn't move.

Asuka was terrified. Frantically, she struggled to tear herself free, to run away, but it was useless. She yelled and the words made no sense. She cursed and it did her no good. All her strength, her pride, hopes and dreams—all hopeless.

"Look at me!"

And then Asuka stopped struggling and she just screamed as the noose was wrapped around her neck.

Asuka's eyes flew wide open in an instant. She kicked away her covers and leaped out of bed, quickly reaching for her night lamp and flicked it on. The darkness dissolved immediately, giving way to the familiar surroundings of her bedroom.

The redhead looked frenetically around for any signs of the nightmare. Every shadow made her anxious, appearing to reach out to grab her like the hands had done. Her breathing was badly labored, her heart feeling as though it were about to burst out of her chest. She was covered in sweat. Her clothes stuck to her like wet paper, only adding to her general feeling of discomfort.

Worse, the effects of the ibuprofen she'd taken before going to bed had worn off and she now felt as though someone was punching her low in the stomach. It was this that finally pushed the last remnants on her nightmare out of her head. Nightmares couldn't hurt her, but her period …

It was never this bad. Normally the cramps would go away after a day or so and leave her alone. Not like this. The vomiting was not normal either. Some times she would be nauseous, but nothing this strong.

Grimacing and clutching herself in pain, Asuka laid down on her side, drawing in her legs. "What's wrong with me?"

* * *

Keiko stumbled out of her room half asleep and clumsily made her way to the bathroom. She knew the way by heart so she had no problem navigating in the darkness. The second she turned the bathroom lights on the flash of light hurt her eyes. She hated having to get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet, but the alternative would be rather unpleasant and embarrassing.

The brunette didn't dwell too much on it, and decided that she might as well accept the fact that it would be nearly impossible to will herself back to sleep anyway.

She took care of her business, washed her hands and shut the light. But as she made her way back to her room, something broke through the mist that clouded her mind and urged her to get back to bed as soon as possible.

She heard voices coming from the kitchen and frowned. Was he still here? What was Miko thinking?

Silently, she moved towards the kitchen and stopped just a few inches away from the door. A sliver of light pierced the darkness at the spot where the wood-like division failed to meet its frame.

Nakayima's voice was the first one she was able to make out. "I think that what bothers you is the fact that she's doesn't look happy," he said. "Maybe she is and just doesn't show it."

Keiko gently slid the door open just another inch, enough to allow her to peer into the kitchen.

"I dunno." Miko's voice trembled as she spoke "What's it matter? I made her do it."

She was drunk, that much Keiko could tell. The blonde girl was sitting up on the kitchen table, with her legs folded underneath her and with a bottle of some kind of liquor on her lap—she had clearly moved on from the sake onto something else. Her face was flushed red, her shoulders wobbly.

"It's not like you forced her," Nakayima, who was standing by the sink with a cup of something on his right hand, said. He might have been drunk as well, but it was harder to tell. "She chose to do it out of her own free will."

"I am responsible for her happiness, aren't I? It's my fault that she is not happy," Miko said, shaking her head. "It's my fault."

Keiko was taken aback by that statement. She had never blamed Miko, nor ever intended to. The decision to pilot the Eva, though very much influenced by her discussion with the older girl, was hers alone. She would stand by it, as any responsible person would.

"Don't say that," Nakayima replied. "It's not your fault."

"How stupid was it of me to think I could take care of a child, when I'm just a child myself? I'm just … I'm just a failure."

"You did a good thing."

Miko closed her eyes, swaying so precariously she might fall off the table. "She could have gone to a nice family. She could have been happy, but.... I was too afraid of being alone. I had to keep her by my side. I had to be selfish."

Keiko felt guilty. She couldn't believe that she was the cause of so much of Miko's pain. She had always been grateful that she decided to take her in and spare her the horrors of foster care. And Miko was someone she was fond of ever since she was a little girl; they practically sisters. But now she was making her suffer. She wanted to slide the door open and speak to her, to say she shouldn't blame herself for anything.

But slowly, a darker feeling began to surface.

What if Miko didn't want to be with her anymore?

Before she became an Eva pilot such a thing would be unthinkable. But people changed—what else could explain her mother leaving her or Asuka's more tolerant attitude lately? Friends fell out of favor; families became estranged. What was to keep Miko from changing her mind about her?

"I should have let her go."

Keiko dropped her head. She stood motionless on that same spot, tears now silently streaming silently down her face. She moved back and closed the door, doing her best to stay hidden.

"Why don't you talk to her?" Nakayima said.

"And say what?" Miko hiccuped. "Sorry, it's not you it's me?"

But the voices from beyond the door were soon muffled by the sound of her own shaky, barely audible whisper. "Please … don't leave me."

* * *

The Lieutenant fixed her eyes on the image provided by one of the many cameras placed inside the entry-plug. Asuka's face looked troubled on the screen, and Maya wonder what could be bothering her. They had not yet given her any feedback, but the redhead seemed to know.

"Her synch-ratio has dropped three more points in the last hour," Hyuga reported grimly. "That's fifteen in total this week." He checked another of his consoles before carrying on.

"The synchrograph is shaky and I have a great deal of interference on her brain pattern's readouts. The system is picking up a 9.7 percent discrepancy between her current outline and her established parameter."

Maya sighed. She wouldn't tell Asuka about any of the abnormalities, as she had been told. It would prove way too risky and knowing the redhead's emotional condition she was sure that, for once, her orders were for the best. "What are the possible causes?"

She leaned over to Hyuga, looking at his screen. Although protocol dictated the chain of command, she was more than capable of making sense of all the data. Asuka's synchrograph was a mess, a squiggly red line jerking up and down followed by a second blue one that diverged slightly from the first at certain points.

The difference was barely noticeable, but it was there, an indication that something was not as it should be.

"Short of a total contamination of the system, which is impossible," Hyuga said, "we can't find anything wrong."

Maya nodded. Time to think like Dr. Akagi, she told herself. "If there were contamination in the system, what is the most likely cause?"

Hyouga swayed the question in his mind for almost a full minute before answering.

"Given our past experiences, I would think it's the pilot, the Eva itself or a combination of both," he finally said. "It's strange, though. If it were, in fact, some kind of contamination, we should be able to pick something up on our readings. But there is nothing." He placed a finger on the blue line tracing it along the screen. "This shouldn't be here. Interference can't form a pattern like this. It follows her neural pattern and then it diverges."

"Like there's two mind inside the Eva," Maya said, her eyes following the same line. "Thinking the same thing?"

"Which is theoretically possible," Hyuga said. "We did have two pilots inside Unit-02 that one time coming from Germany. But," he checked the screen showing the redhead's face again, "obviously she's all alone in there."

Maya straightened. She remembered it well—on the trip over to deliver Unit-02 the UN convoy had been attacked by a fish-like Angel. Shinji and Asuka had activated Unit-02 and fought together. They both broke their synch records. "And even in that case the thought patterns were distinct. We could match each of them individually to the pilots."

"Right. Two pilots, two minds, two distinct patterns. Nothing like this. Regulations dictate that we classify the divergence as a system error. However, we have overhauled the entire system and the readings are still flawed."

Maya took her eyes off the screen and permitted her gaze to lock on Hyuga. "I hope it's not the pilot," she declared somberly. "What about the components inside the Eva?"

"We switched out the entry-plug," he said. "That should eliminate any hardware problems on that side. Unfortunately we still don't understand how it is that Unit-02 began working again in the first place so no core components can be altered without running the risk of damaging the system."

At the rate that Asuka's synch-ratio was dropping that might not be a problem much longer. Once below the starting indicator there wouldn't be much they could do to make things worse.

But Maya was not willing to let it come to that. "I'll see if I can get Doctor Akagi to let us look at the code."

* * *

His day had been uneventful, so much so that Shinji had spent most of it waiting for something to happen— for some great catastrophe to fall from the sky or bad news of some sort. He had gone to school by himself, since Asuka had decided that she would sleep in on account of not feeling very well. He also knew she had a synch test scheduled today, which she would be unlike to miss.

Confident that she would at least leave the apartment and thus not be alone all day, he decided to let her be.

Most of the class time he spent wishing he were somewhere else. And later he had shared a nice lunch with Rei, whom he regretted not being able to spend more time with. Rei had not seemed to mind, yet he had still felt obligated to apologize for his distance lately.

Her recovery from the injuries suffered during the attack was nothing short of miraculous, as far as he was concerned. And despite his increasingly closer relationship with Asuka, he was glad they could share a moment by themselves.

The contrast was stunning—with Asuka he was always walking on eggshells, having to watch what he said and worry about her reaction, but he was so much at ease with Rei. She was a good listener. More importantly, she was completely accepting and understanding. It didn't matter the subject, he could talk to Rei. That there was a time when he had actively shunned her seemed to belong to another life.

Being her usual taciturn self, it was a rather one-sided conversation. It wasn't until five minutes in that he realized he'd been talking about Asuka. Other girls might have taken offense, but not Rei. She seemed to understand that the redhead was now a major influence in his life, and in a more positive way than before. But, strangely, it was more comfortable simply because Asuka wasn't there.

Shinji had spent so much time together with her that it felt like they were married. That was not to say Shinji didn't relish the moments they shared with one another, just that some times being apart could be good too. And he looked forward to being back with Asuka, too, an indication—in his mind at least—that he was not seeking to escape the tensions with her through Rei. Asuka, he knew, would have probably had a fit.

Even now Shinji was aware that one day he would have to deal with that. How could someone have two close friends when one of them couldn't stand the other? He doubted whether Asuka truly hated Rei, but she could hardly stand to be around her.

After lunch the rest of the school day had gone by in a flash. Having been exempted from clean-up duty by Hikari, the Third Child had gotten home early and made dinner, which he shared with Asuka as usual. She didn't comment on her test so he decided that he shouldn't ask.

They went their separate ways after dinner. Asuka locked herself in her room and Shinji started on his homework. More than a few times, he felt like asking his redheaded roommate for help on the more complex physics problems, but opted against it. Evidently, Asuka was in a bad mood and likely still sick. It wouldn't do any good to bother her about something as trivial as physics.

They didn't see each other for the rest of the evening. After finishing his homework and watching some TV, Shinji went into his room and turned on his S-DAT.

He had already lost track of time as he lay on his bed, resting on his side. The darkness enveloped him in much the same way as the musical notes from his earphones. Sleep slowly presented itself, and he closed his eyes and immersed his senses into the arpeggios of a cello solo. Slowly, very slowly, he drifted off.

It was a dreamless sleep, and the next thing he remembered was a noise outside his door. By then the music had ran its course. Though awake again he turned on his side and pretended to be snoozing.

Then Shinji heard the door being opened, then muffled footsteps, and the door again as it was slid shut**.** In the darkness, the footsteps drew closer and he felt the side of the bed sinking.

"Shinji?" Her voice surprised him.

He thought he was dreaming. He had to be for Asuka to have come in his room in the middle of the night. He'd had dreams like this before. The next she would do was was put a hand down the front of his pants and start to … followed by her mouth …

But when he did feel her hand it was on his shoulder. "Hey, Shinji, are you awake?"

There was a part of him that wanted to ignore her, hoping she would do what she always did in his dream, but as he rolled the words in his head he picked up on something that was never in the dream before.

"Y-yes," he replied as he rolled over to Asuka, who indeed sat on the edge of his bed. He could barely see her in the darkness, but the tone of her voice was awkward. Also not like in his dream, her hair was tousled and he thought he could smell sweat.

And then, like a bucket of cold water, it hit him—he was an idiot and this was no dream. She was really there in his room. And here he was, hoping she would— "A-Asuka?" he sat bolt upright, his sheets falling away. "W-what-what are you doing here?"

Asuka sighed heavily. "I … was wondering if I could … spend the night here."

"I ..." Shinji's eyes grew wider. Again he thought he was surely dreaming, but the next words shattered that illusion.

"Don't look at me like that, you pervert," Asuka growled, realizing what he was thinking. "I don't mean sleep like _that_. I just want to sleep."

Shinji blinked a few times as his brain struggled to fully comprehend what was going on. Was she messing with him? No, not even Asuka would do something like this in the middle of the night for her amusement. "W-what's wrong with your bed?" he asked dumbly.

"Nothing, stupid," Asuka scoffed. "I had a nightmare and … I just want to stay here for a bit, alright?"

Her voice was weird and shaky, both qualities augmented by the fact that he seldom heard them coming from her. Like the echo in a cave, they sounded louder than the words themselves. She was scared—scared enough from whatever had been in her nightmare that it had driven her out of her room and into his.

At no point did Shinji consider sending her away. From his silence Asuka seemed to think that was exactly what he meant to do.

"Fine." She got up. "Forget I asked. In fact, forget this ever happened."

"N-no, don't leave," he said sheepishly and quickly added, "Just don't hog all the covers." He moved over, giving her some room and leaving no doubt as to his intentions. His bed was small, but it should be big enough for the both them. Barely.

"Let me warn you, Third Child, if you try any funny business, you won't live to see daylight," Asuka threatened as she crawled onto the bed and under the covers, which she swiftly pulled away from Shinji. "GIMME!"

"Hey!" he complained.

"Be quiet," Asuka retorted, rolling onto her side so that her back was to him and wrapping the covers around herself. "And turn around. I don't want you staring at me while I sleep. That's so creepy."

Shinji had once heard a joke about how German tourists were the nicest of all, except when they marched into your country with intentions to stay. He thought that was a somewhat amusing analogy, considering the situation. Asuka certainly made her presence felt as soon as she got into bed next to him and his body responded accordingly, stiffening a certain part of his anatomy.

Laying down on his side, he turned his back to her. He hoped she wouldn't notice or he would be nursing a black eye for the next few days.

"Shinji?"

Shinji almost jumped out of the bed, thinking he was caught. "W-what?" he managed to stutter a hesitantly.

"You don't think this is weird, do you?" she asked, her voice low.

Should he lie? Would she be put off by the fact that it was just about the weirdest thing he'd ever had happen in his bedroom? "Um, well, I ..."

"Do you remember that week we spent doing synchronization training?" she said. "You know, when we had to do everything the same and wear those stupid outfits? I know it was a pain, but those were some of the best nights of my life. I guess after all that training I was just that tired. Or just because I'd just moved in and it was a new place and all. But it felt so good, you know."

Shinji agreed, but for different reasons. Freshly moved in from Germany, Asuka had dedicated every waking moment to teasing him mercilessly. Having her go to sleep was great, no matter where or when.

"Yeah, I remember," he muttered vaguely. "I also remember you sleepwalk."

"No I don't," she shifted slightly, her movement carried over to him through the mattress. "You were dreaming."

Shinji felt the pleasant rubble of laughter in his stomach. "Maybe I'm dreaming now."

"Maybe you are. This whole thing could be a dream and you are really stuck in your Eva again. Or maybe you are really just some dull schoolboy dreaming he's an elite pilot with a hot roommate. If that's the case, then could you at least dream me with a bigger rack?"

"You ... really think they are too small?" he asked, strangely without a much reservation.

Asuka shoved an elbow against his back, nudging him, but not hard enough to hurt. Instead of yelling at him, she said, "What do you think?"

Again, the answer came naturally, fearlessly. He felt comfortable talking to her like this. Their relationship so far had been defined by outbursts of emotions, confusing and some times with heart-wrenching consequences. This was a nice change. "I like you just the way you are."

"Idiot. What do you know anyway."

Despite her smarmy reply, his answer seemed to settle something in her head, and she fell silent.

* * *

It took Asuka a few more minutes to settle down. Although she still felt uncomfortable with this arrangement, she really didn't want to be alone right now. Being next to Shinji, warm and safe in his bed, and their short but sincere conversation had already done a lot to soothe her frayed nerves.

The nightmare had been the worse so far. She had seen herself covered in blood and it made her feel utterly sick. The images had been so vivid, so lifelike that had she not awakened on that instant, the redhead swore she would have lost her mind. She was strong, but there was only so much abuse her subconscious could take.

So she had made the decision to come to Shinji. She was desperate and with all that had happened between them she felt she could trust him for comfort, even if it meant asking him for something when she would rather not. She could imagine the things that must have gone through his head as she told him she wanted to spend the night. He must have thought it was his most perverted fantasy come true.

That bothered her, but it was nothing to worry about. Shinji was not like other men. She could trust him.

As it was, they ended up lying facing away from each other, touching in places despite their best efforts. Shinji was practically shoved into the wall, yet Asuka could feel the small of his back pressing against hers. She controlled most of the cover, squirming and struggling to find her ideal comfort spot.

Asuka had always hated Japanese beds: they were too damn small. And this one, being only designed for one occupant, was particularly uncomfortable for her.

Still, she would rather stay here this than go back to her room.

* * *

Shinji was not having any luck finding the peaceful rest that came with sleep. He could hear her body rustling against the bed sheets and feel her movements, her shapely bare legs shuffling about, even brushing absently on his, her hips shifting, her body nuzzling against the mattress. But after a while she became motionless.

"Asuka?" The Third Child gently called out, suddenly feeling apprehensive.

There was no reply, only the eerie silence of his room.

"Asuka?" Shinji rolled over and sat up again, letting what few parts of the covers he had somehow kept hold of fall away from him for good. He looked over at Asuka. It was then that the image of the redhead's body fully struck him.

There was hardly any light in the room, but he could clearly distinguish her slender contour under thin sheets that barely managed to cover down to her knees, leaving her exposed from the top of her calves to the tip of her toes. Though she had her back to him, he could still see the profile her sharp features made in contrast to the white pillow on which her head rested, amidst an ocean of red locks.

She looked so peaceful now, so far away from everything, and yet she was lying right here next to him. And so close, in fact, that he could smell the perfumed scent of her hair, along with the clean, familiar essence of her musk. And he could most certainly feel her heat.

Asuka's mouth moved gently, a soft moan escaping her parted lips.

She was already asleep, whatever nightmare had brought her here now forgotten. He was glad he could do that for her, but at the same time not sure what having her on his bed meant for them. Were they still just friends? Did this make them a couple? Or did it mean nothing at all?

He laid down and found himself facing the wall, so close that the slightest movement would send him crashing nose first into it. Groaning, he turned over, only to get a face full of Asuka's hair. It was just everywhere. He couldn't sleep like this. Asuka had already taken most of the bed, he might as well let her have the rest.

Shinji sighed and slowly inched off the mattress so as not to wake her. Taking his pillow with him, he worked his way around the foot of the bed and finally climbed out of it.

Then, looking her over one last time, he lay down on the floor. "Sorry, Asuka."

* * *

Misato stepped off the small personnel elevator and onto the command deck with a purpose. "What is it?" she demanded, dismissing the worried glances of everyone else in the room.

"I think you can take a guess," Ritsuko replied, waving her hand at the huge tactical display that took up most of the room's forward section. "Bad news."

The display showed an image of the outside world, blue morning sky and mountain slopes. Misato could also see a dark blot, hovering there in the air as if suspended by an invisible string. Though at first she thought it was an image glitch, the feeling on the pit of her stomach told her she already knew what it was.

"Have the MAGI confirmed anything?" the Major asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the Angel's dark image.

"No," came the reply from Hyuga, "The pattern keeps changing, just like the last time. We have forgone the confirmation and have already declared this the 19th Angel."

Misato narrowed her eyes as something odd struck her. "Where's this image from?"

"Sector 8," Ritsuko replied coolly.

Misato gave her a shocked look, though she hoped not a distressed one. "But ... that's inside the defense perimeter."

"Correct," Ritsuko said. "And if it hadn't been for the boys in 10th Mountain getting up so early we wouldn't have even seen it coming until it was right on top of us."

"What do you mean?"

"The IFR sensors didn't pick up anything, the MADs didn't either. Even now, according to radar and sonar, this thing doesn't exist. It's not there. The only confirmation we have is the visual feed."

Misato allowed her eyes to move away from the doctor and back to the Angel's image. She noticed that her first impression had been mistaken; it was not blot, there was simply nothing there. "That's impossible. It's got to be a malfunction."

"On the contrary, it's quite possible," Ritsuko explained. "We saw a similar thing with one of the previous Angels, remember? It still must have a core. When it comes to the Angels, that is an invariable law of our universe. We just need to find somehow."

"The question is, how?"

"There is only one force in our universe capable of creating this kind of phenomena. Gravity," Ritsuko continued. "For it to absorb light like this it must have one a huge gravitational pull. Since gravity requires mass and density, it's quite possible that its total mass, although minuscule, has a super-high density. I took that into consideration and managed to pinpoint a gravity anomaly somewhere inside its spectrum. Aoba?"

Aoba hit a few buttons on his console and a red circle appeared around the blot. There was a tag next to the circle, showing numbers.

"Our sensors and tracking devices are not set up to detect gravity. I've ordered the technicians to re-calibrate them to allow us to track this. There is a very scientific explanation for what we are seeing, though. As you probably know, black holes suck matter towards it because it's a void of such high density that its gravity traps even light. This is a very similar thing. We are seeing a black shadow because the light that comes near it cannot escape it."

Misato thought about that. Astrophysics was one of her worse subjects in college, when she could be bothered to go to class. "Then shouldn't it be sucking everything towards itself? Which it's not."

Ritsuko seemed to have been expecting her question. "It must have a counter-force to keep itself in a state of balance with the universe around it. All CPT symmetry theories dictate that for every particle in the universe there is a counter-particle, and I believe it's using something similar. It's an Angel, so there still has to be a meta-biological element involved, but if it's using gravity it must also be doing something else to keep from collapsing on itself."

There were a few confused faces among the staff. Misato understood what she meant, even though she could have done without the long-winded lecture. "So, is there any way we can tip the balance?"

Ritsuko nodded. "Energy. And lots of it. A sudden burst might upset the balance and disrupt the symmetry, causing a chain reaction."

Misato pondered on that piece of information, but before she could say anything, Hyuga raised his head. "Major," he called. "We have a priority call from Kyoto."

"Put it on the screen," she ordered.

A small box opened on the main screen, on the upper left-hand corner, showing Gendo Ikari's stern face. Misato saluted. "Sir?"

"You may dispense with the pleasantries, Major," Ikari said brusquely. "I have been informed of the situation. Declare a Level One alert. Unfortunately for us, all air traffic has been grounded at this time. It will be a few hours before we can make it back. You will have to act at your discretion and conduct this operation on your own. I look forward to a full report upon my arrival."

"Yes, sir." The Major nodded.

Ikari signed off without another word.

Right, Misato thought. It was up to her now. She turned to Hyuga. "Bring in the children." Then to Ritsuko. "How much energy are we talking about?"

* * *

The phone pierced the quiet morning air. Shinji slowly opened his eyes, blinking several times to clear his vision and remembering how much he hated the shrieking sound of the the ringer. It always brought bad news.

Sluggishly, he tried to sit but barely managed to get up on his elbows when something stopped him. He felt a strange weight around his waist. At first he thought he'd become entangled on the covers, but then recalled that didn't have any. The familiar morning stiffness was there also. That wasn't it either.

In the half-asleep condition he found himself, the Third Child turned to look down at what the weight was.

The phone kept ringing, louder it seemed to his sleep-logged brain.

Shinji froze as soon as he realized what was holding him down. It was an arm.

He followed the arm to its owner and realized she was lying right next to him on the floor, her head nuzzled against his flank and all he could really see was a mane of golden-red hair shimmering in the morning light.

Golden-red, just like—

Shinji sat up abruptly, causing Asuka's limb to slide down from his waist and onto his lap. Had he not been sure that the German girl was asleep he would have freaked out, since her hand ended up in just the wrong place, right on top of the bulge of his erection.

His heartbeat spiked into a deafening drum in a matter of seconds and stuck in his throat. His body tensed like a board, every muscle suddenly clenched in panic. Asuka's hand wriggled in his lap, fingers grasping unconsciously.

Time seemed to stop. His whole existence shrunk down to this moment, and on how important it was to stay perfectly still. Should Asuka awake to find herself doing this she would find a way to blame him, and then she would proceed to beat the hell out of him. Answering the phone would be the least of his concerns.

His heart was pounding so loudly he could not even hear the phone ringing anymore.

After giving himself a moment to think, Shinji decided to move away very, very slowly. It almost worked, because the second Asuka's lips began to move and her body stirred, he jumped to his feet and went for the phone, hoping that the girl would never know what had just happened.

The Third Child didn't realize it at the time, but he had been holding his breath all along.

* * *

"You want me to do _what_?" Asuka's dismay echoed across the briefing room. She looked at her hand, then gave Misato a glare that would have scared the devil. "Are you insane?"

Misato shook her head, but the sympathetic look on her face told Shinji she understood why Asuka would refuse the dangerous assignment she was just given. He wasn't sure he liked it very much either.

"This is the only plan that we can come up with at the moment," Misato explained. She sounded unconvinced. With her arms folded loosely across her chest, she looked defensive. But then, Shinji knew fully that she would be reluctant to place any of them in danger unless she believed it was absolutely necessary.

True to her apparently prominent position in this mission, Asuka stood in the center of the briefing room, flanked by Shinji and Keiko on either side. They were all clad in their plugsuits—a triad of red, blue-white, and yellow.

Though he wasn't the most perceptive sort, even Shinji could sense the air was loaded; tension and fear coming from Keiko, concern from Misato, red-hot outrage from Asuka. Neither the brunette nor himself had said anything as Misato laid out her plan, but the unabashed redhead spoke what they both felt.

Asuka let out an annoyed groan. "A plan?" she protested. "A _plan!_ Smashing myself against that thing carrying and N2 mine is not my idea of a plan! Why don't you just bomb it!"

"We need to get through its AT Field." Ritsuko took a step towards the redhead. "It's a lot safer than it sounds, actually. You will have your AT Field fully deployed in order to neutralize the Angel's so the explosion from the mine won't hurt you."

Asuka set her gloved hands on her hips. "What if the mine hits the AT Field before it goes down? Then what?"

"We have removed the impact detonators from the mine and wired it to a gravity fuse," Ritsuko explained patiently. "Impact will not set the mine off, the Angel's gravitational pull on it will."

"Taking me out in the process!" the redhead retorted.

Ritsuko gave her a frown. "Your AT Field will protect you. I don't see what the big deal is. Rei did something like this once. She was not even ordered to."

Shinji saw the expression on the Asuka's face change at once. Immediately, he resented Ritsuko playing to her overwhelming bravado in such a shameless way. But like it or not, he understood that this had to be done. He would much prefer it if it was him going out there instead. Somehow, the idea that he would only be standing by was as bad as Asuka carrying a bomb with her bare hands.

He fought the urge to step in, to volunteer. Unit-01 was in stasis, but if he said something then maybe Asuka ...

"Fine," Asuka finally agreed, pointing at finger at Misato. "I'll do it, but I want you to remember this the next time I ask for a favor. And I don't want you to nag me about chores again. Ever."

It was then that Shinji spoke. "What about me?"

Misato locked eyes with him, and he saw in them concern and yet determination. "Like I said, you will be inside Unit-01 as back-up. The Commander wants it to stay in stasis for the moment."

Shinji felt a cold lump on his throat. "But," he hesitated, "I want to be out there with Asuka. Please."

"We can't risk it," Ritsuko interjected.

"But..."

"Shinji, no."

Defeated, Shinji looked over to Asuka, to let her know he was sorry he couldn't help her. The thought of her being by herself turned his stomach. But when the redhead looked back at him she flashed a grin that was all confidence, bordering on arrogance. Her eyes shone brightly—she was ready to do what she needed to do.

He admired her. He was proud of her. Nobody could do this like Asuka; he would be a mass of nerves in her place. Yet there she was, smiling, sharing her certainty with him.

Shinji smiled shyly back, convinced she would be fine.

"Keiko," Misato called, causing the brunette's body to stiffen with fear. "You will support Asuka."

Keiko blinked once as her eyes slowly filled with horror. "S-support?" she faltered, her voice a shaky, terrified whisper. "What do you mean?"

"Support," Misato said, not sternly but also not talking down to her. "You'll be out there providing fire support for Asuka. You are not to engage in close-quarters combat unless absolutely necessary."

The brunette's throat quivered as she swallowed with difficulty. "I-I … understand."

Asuka snarled. "This is stupid. The crybaby will probably wet herself as soon as that thing starts coming towards her."

"Asuka!" Misato barked.

"Give me a break! I'm about to do something incredibly stupid that you dare call 'a plan', so get off my back."

Ritsuko agreed, understandably so since she had already gotten what she wanted out of Asuka. She gave Misato a shake of the head, indicating this was not a fight they should get into right now.

Shinji had never liked the way Asuka acted towards Keiko, but the redhead's harsh personality made such treatment a given. Even his relationship with her had only just moved beyond it—not to mention barely survived it. But while Asuka was making fun of her, it was also clear that much of the poison was missing, as though she felt she needed to save face by putting the other girl down in front of others but not really mean it.

The Major gave Asuka a reassuring smile, their uneasy exchange forgotten. "Be careful," she offered and with that she and the doctor made their way out of the briefing room.

Shinji was the first of the three children to speak, turning to the redhead next to him. "Asuka ..."

Asuka cut him short with a swipe of her hand. "I'll be fine," she said. "We've had stupid plans before. And I feel better. Really."

He did his best to agree. "I know. I-I still wish I could go out there with you."

"It's not your fault," Asuka replied. "Someone has to be the back up in case I get blasted."

The Third Child shook his head, unable to even think of that possibility. "Don't say that. You are … you are the best. And besides you ..."

Asuka gave him a cynical look. "Right, I know."

Shinji was about to say something else—to finish that sentence with the words "you are important to me," but Keiko interrupted before he got the chance.

"We are in a lot of trouble, aren't we?" the young brunette said, fear creeping into her words. Her body language was cowed. She fidgeted with her hands, plainly scared.

The Second Child shrugged dismissively. "We always are, now it's just slightly worse."

"It'll be alright," Shinji reassured her, though feeling like he himself could use some reassuring. "Asuka will look after you." He turned his head to the German girl. "Won't you?"

For a second, Asuka looked like she wanted to slap him. "Yeah, because I enjoy being dragged down by dead weight." Then her manner changed, becoming more serious. "Of course I will. I know how things like this upset you."

"Thank you," Shinji said.

"Thank you," Keiko repeated, her fear lifted slightly.

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Unbelievable."

* * *

"The target is still holding steady," Hyuga communicated over the main tactical frequency. "No hostile activity detected."

Asuka nodded and moved out from behind one of the buildings on Tokyo-3's south site. She carefully traced the route that would take her behind the Angel. Or, since there was really no telling, at least to the opposite side of where Unit-08 stood as decoy.

It had been Misato's idea to use the crybaby to get the Angel's attention, while Asuka closed in on it from behind—well, from the opposite side. The redhead would have rather taken the vanguard, but she had to admit that this idea made much more sense, tactically speaking. Divide and conquer.

It only took her few minutes to reach her mark. She checked the small map of the city displayed on her main HUD. The Angel was now directly between her and Unit-08, but it did not appear to be going anywhere. It was just sitting there. Asuka cradled the N2 mine she carried, pressing it against her torso, and could not avoid thinking about how stupid this whole thing was.

She tried recalling the mine's specifications in her head—how many tons of explosives? What was the delay? How far was the effective range?

Then she heard someone's voice over the communicator. "Open fire."

The order was immediately followed by a stream of fire from Unit-08's rifle. Asuka peaked around the edge of the building she was using for cover and saw the projectiles tracing a gentle arc in the air as they approached the target. They were all on target butthe projectiles seemed to sail right through it to smash on the ground, leaving deep gashes on the street.

Asuka focused on the dark monstrosity that was the Angel. It looked like nothing she had seen before and its dark spectrum seemed to just suck the light out of the air. She knew it was supposed to have a core somewhere, but from here she couldn't see a thing.

Whatever. N2 mine goes boom. No more core.

A second stream of fire poured from Unit-08's rifle, and again, they sailed through the target without even an AT Field to oppose them.

"I'm in position," Asuka announced. "Tell the crybaby to stop shooting or she'll get me."

"We are ready," Misato replied over the radio. "Begin your countdown."

Asuka tightened her grip on the control sticks and allowed a fierce snarl to form on her features. She held the cylindrical N2 device with one hand now, at arm's length, like a quarterback getting ready to hand off a football. She had gone over the scenario a half-dozen times already. She would rush at the Angel, AT Field fully deployed, and shove the N2 mine as close to the Angel as the gravity trigger would let her before detonation.

What would happen after that was anyone's guess. But she wasn't afraid. This was her duty. And she knew she would see Shinji again. "Screw that, I'm going out there!"

Unit-02 sprung from its static position with a thunderous roar, spreading its AT Field as it went. It pivoted on its right foot and sprinted towards the Angel with long, powerful strides, making the street crack under it, covering most of the distance between itself and the dark entity in seconds.

The red Evangelion held the mine with an arm stretched forward, keeping the explosiveas far away from any vital organ as it could. Asuka could feel the ground shaking under her feet, the adrenaline rushing, the sheer intoxication of the charge. The distance closed awfully fast and Asuka braced herself for the explosion that was soon to follow, but just as she did, something stopped her. Dead in her tracks.

Like a wall, a huge octagonal-shaped AT Field stretched before her, sharp red lines emanating from a luminescent center.

_"You bastard!"_ Asuka cursed and brought all of her strength to bear on the AT Field, while focusing entirely on increasing her own. She could feel the titanic forces around her fighting, rippling in the air. Teeth and muscles clenched, she strained to force the mine through, but still the AT Field held it at bay.

Asuka pushed with all her fury. She pushed and pushed and ...

And then the AT Fields disappeared.

Asuka barely had time to register what happened next. Without the AT Field to oppose her, her strength and momentum sent her and Unit-02 plummeting forward. She managed to catch herself with a stiff-arm maneuver against the ground, and quickly darted back to her feet. She was still moving forward. But as she tried to raise her AT Field, one thought hit her.

When the Angel's AT Field collapsed, it took hers along with it and she lacked the strength to produce another one fast enough. No AT Field meant no defenses.

"Asuka!" Misato yelled over the comm. "Get out!"

The redhead narrowed her eyes and focused on the Angel, only a few dozen yards away now. Its dark spectrum eclipsed the sunlight as it towered over her. "What are you talking about? I'm fine," she said, looking down at the mine on Unit-02's hand.

She gasped. _The mine._

Asuka froze and she realized just how close she was to the Angel as she felt something begin tugging at her. She blinked slowly, unbelieving. Then her electric blue eyes began to grow wide. Something was pulling her towards the Angel's dark mass.

_Gravity!_

Asuka dropped the mine and sprang back. A split second later a bright light enveloped the horizon. Asuka averted her eyes as the ground around her shook. The sound of thunder filled the entry-plug. And then it was as though her left arm were being ripped out of its socket as Unit-02's arm disintegrated.

Clutching her shoulder, Asuka screamed.

Misato screamed with her. "Asuka!"

Another split second and there was no longer any pain as the Second Child's world went dark.

* * *

Feeling a desperate coldness wrapping around her heart, Misato leaned over Hyuga's station. "What's Asuka's status?" she demanded.

"She's alive," Hyuga replied. "Unconscious. Massive damage to her right arm and right side, but the entry-plug remains undamaged."

Misato nodded with a certain degree of relief. Asuka was hurt, but it wasn't as bad as she'd originally feared. And this time, unlike the previous battle, she had made sure Shinji was locked out of the communications. It had pained her to do it. Now she was glad she had.

Aoba called from his console. "Major, I have a huge gravitational anomaly on my scanners."

Misato glanced up towards the gigantic main screen and saw, horrified, what was going on outside. It was as if someone had opened a hole into the fabric of the universe and now everything within range was being sucked into that hole, making a spiral as it went.

In a matter of seconds, the black spectrum that had made up the Angel condensed into a solid sphere.

_A perfect sphere_, Misato thought. And as assorted things smashed against it and were assimilated into its crust, she noticed that its diameter increased. It absorbed matter, changing to become part of itself.

"Is this..." Misato couldn't find a way to finish the sentence. All of the bridge was plunged into silence as the images struck home. She could see the fear in their faces.

And then, just as it had started, it stopped and only the sphere was left, hovering calmly and quietly over the cityscape.

"The gravitational anomaly is gone," Aoba reported.

"This is its true form, isn't it?" Misato asked of Ritsuko, who was now standing on Hyuga's other side.

Ritsuko nodded. "Looks like it."

"The bastard knew we would try to intercept it," Misato whispered, finally able to fully grasp the implications of her words. "It baited us."

"Impossible. It doesn't think like that," Ritsuko replied, casting an incredulous glance at the Major. The concern she saw in those dark eyes almost had physical form. "It is not a predator. It doesn't --"

She was interrupted by Keiko's scream.

* * *

Something burst out of the sphere and shot towards her. Keiko failed to realize what was going on until it was too late. The thing, which looked like some the kind of black tentacle wrapped itself around Unit-08's torso. Her torso.

Frantically, Keiko tried to get it off of her but it held on tight. She felt it squeezing her, pinning her to the plug's command seat. As she struggled, the thing looped around her Eva, catching its right arm at the elbow and trapping in painfully against its body.

Keiko shrieked as the futility of her fight began to sink in. More out of sheer terror than anything else, she kept struggling. "Asuka! Help me!"

A voice came to her but she couldn't recognize it. "Keiko, your unit is equipped with a progressive knife. Use it to cut yourself loose."

But Keiko was beyond rational thought, and her plight was merely fueled by the primitive instinct to survive. She was hurting, her pretty face locked into a grotesque mask of pain. The tentacle, or whatever it was, squeezed with such force that she thought her ribs would crack. Soon, she was desperate for breath, and with a firm tug, Unit-08 was brought to its knees.

"Asuka ..." She was exhausted, gasping desperately for air. She knew she couldn't fight this thing, but the idea that she was about to die seemed childish.

The voice came again. "Keiko, don't panic!"

Where was Asuka? Why wasn't she helping? Why had she left her?

Keiko desperately gasped for air. She shook her head and thrashed about in her seat, as if to force the thing to release her, but it held on even tighter. She planted her feet on her console, and used all the leverage she could muster to tear herself free, but it was in vain.

"Keiko, you can make it!" the voice of encouragement was lost on her.

It was useless.

Asuka wasn't coming.

She was alone.

The girl allowed the tears to run, tickling her cheeks as they went, and shut her eyes. Convinced that she was going to die, she gave herself to the Angel's mercy. Keiko whimpered quietly as she felt Unit-08 being lifted into the air.

* * *

No one on the Control Room spoke a word. They watched as the Angel's whip-like appendage tossed Unit-08 in the air and yanked it towards its spherical body. It was a surreal scene, almost too incredible to believe. The Angel had overpowered the Eva, and was now playing around with it.

Misato was the first to gather her thoughts. "We need to do something."

"No kidding," Ritsuko replied next to her. "Any ideas?"

The Major shook her head. "You'll be the second one to know." She stared at one the nearest screen as Unit-08 crashed against the Angel again with such force that she wondered if the Evangelion would break in half. She had to do something. The question was, what?

"Major," Hyuga called. "The Angel's energy pattern is changing."

Ritsuko beat Misato to the reply. "It could be that even this is not its final form."

Then, as if on cue to the doctor's words, the sphere's crust began to crack. To Misato it resembled a planet fracturing under the force of a nearby star. The sphere was not big, its diameter was barely wide enough to be equal to the distance between the Evangelion's shoulders, but she didn't know what kind of damage it would do if it exploded. She noticed something on the image.

The Angel's whip was holding the Eva by its torso, pressing its side just under the left clavicle against the sphere's circumference, where she could tell the crack on its crust had originated.

It couldn't be because of the impact, she though. She focused harder, and noticed that there was some kind of liquid escaping from the spot where the cracks had originated.

But Ritsuko already knew then what the Angel was going to do, and she took the words right out of Misato's mouth. "It's going to attempt contact. It wants the pilot."

The image flickered as the zoom was engaged. There, Misato saw it—as the dark liquid came into contact with Unit-08's armor, it began eating through it. It was as if the liquid had a life of its own. The substance expanded over the Eva's armor like a cancer, blackening it as it went.

"It's gone through the armor plates!" Hyuga yelled. "First level contact is imminent!"

"Get her out of there!" the Major ordered. "Eject the entry-plug!"

"We can't," Ritsuko said. "Mass Production units were never meant to have human pilots. Since the Dummy can be overridden by remote. There's simply no need for an ejection system."

Misato stared at her. "God, Ritsuko."

"We have physical contamination in the system!" Aoba reported. "It's going over the safety parameters."

"We have lost all contact with the pilot," Hyuga said. "All telemetry is gone as well. I've got nothing."

With a thunderous roar, the cracks on the sphere's crust began to expand, until they covered all of it, like grotesque coordinates in a map, and from each one of them, more liquid came pouring out. Misato noticed that the whip was actually pushing the Eva inside of the shattered sphere, as if it were trying to devour it.

"Major," Hyuga called again. "The Angel … it's ..." he struggled to find the words. "I don't know."

Misato blinked. "What?"

The sphere came crashing towards the ground, dragging Unit-08 with it. It smashed against the street below and started to melt, as did the whip, which was still wrapped around the besieged Evangelion.

"It's going to take over the Eva!" Ritsuko said, as what had been the Angel turned into a pond of dark fluid, and began adhering itself to Unit-08. Soon, the white Eva unit was engulfed into a blackened heap as every part of its body came into contact with the Angel's blood.

"Massive physical contamination on all circuits!" Aoba reported. "Connections 23 to 745 are gone. The Neural Nodes have been invaded!"

"All systems are collapsing," Hyuga yelled, and displayed Unit-08's diagram on the main screen. It showed a static view of the Evangelion, and divided it section-by-section. The contaminated sections were tainted red and the non-contaminated ones in black, which at this point were only the ones on the right upper body and the section set immediately above the core.

Misato felt a knot forming in her stomach. Eighty percent of the Evangelion had been taken over in a few seconds.

"Sever all physical and logical links between the pilot and the Eva!" Ritsuko ordered. "Isolate the main nervous--"

"Main nervous system has been invaded up to the 3rd vertebrae," Aoba replied. "Isolating lymphatic system. Isolation has failed!"

"Terminate neural links!" that from Ritsuko again. "Keep the physical contamination away from the pilot."

"Neural links have been overridden!" came the frantic reply. "We … we are being locked out of the system!"

Then came the report Misato feared the most. "The entry-plug is being invaded!"

She was somewhat glad that the Angel had severed all communications, both visual and sound, between them and the pilot. She didn't think she would be able to take the image of what must be going on inside the entry-plug.

"The plug is gone," Aoba reported, his voice barely a shocked whisper. "I … am not reading anything. The Neural Link is still in place, but there is not much I can do with that."

Misato swallowed hard. "What about Asuka?"

"Nothing," Hyuga replied. "But Unit-02 still has power so she still technically has a chance. We could try defibrillating the LCL. Low voltage stimulus might--"

"In that condition it's just as likely to stop her heart." Misato turned to Ritsuko. "Get Unit-01 out of stasis."

"You don't have the authority."

The Major snarled. "Screw the authority. Haruna," she said, turning to the female operator. "Where the hell is Maya? Tell her to get Unit-01 ready for combat."

"Ma'am, Lieutenant Ibuki has not reported in this morning."

Ritsuko gave her a harsh look, but before she could say anything Hyuga's alarmed voice echoed from his console. "Major, I have contamination detected on input port three-four-seven."

Misato narrowed her eyes. Information was coming hard and fast, and she was doing her best to keep up. "What's Input port 347?"

"It's part of the communication's array," Ritsuko answered. "It's not a critical system. In fact, it's the port connected to the pilot's output signal from the A-10 frequency, but ..." the doctor caught herself right there, her face turned pale.

Misato felt her eyes widening. She understood. "Terminate the signal!"

"I can't," Hyuga replied. "Contamination in ports 348, 349,350,351 and 352 detected!"

Ritsuko found herself screaming as she began to realize what the Angel was now doing. "It's cramming itself into our network using the pilot's interface with the Eva as a portal. That's why we didn't have communications. It's trying to use Unit-08's communication package to access us!"

* * *

It started in the small of her back and moved up, burning as it went. Rei cried out in pain, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She stumbled, suddenly unable to coordinate her movements, and she fell to the floor.

Above her, the two Section 2 bodyguards left behind by Commander Ikari to guard her looked at each other in distress. "Miss Ayanami?" one of them called. "Are you alright?"

They knelt besides her. But Rei could not see them, she could not feel them or hear them. All that existed in the world was this pain. Not her pain.

Somebody else. Somebody else was suffering. Someone she knew and yet didn't know, whose life had been intertwined with her in the deepest way possible.

But Rei had no life—she was a ghost. She went to school, she slept, she ate, but Gendo Ikari had seen to it that she was apart. She barely saw or spoke to anyone. She existed only because he needed her to exist. It was misery, like waiting to die, trapped in a cell. She longed for company; even the Second would be a relief, even to be yelled at.

And then, the day before, Shinji had talked to her again. It was wonderful.

In some way she didn't understand, Rei knew this pain was connected to that feeling. It was human pain, crying for help, agony beyond her ability to describe.

Rei focused inwards. She could feel the sensations washing over her and reached out to touch them. Pain was the dominant one, then fear, regret, shame and the desire to die. They mixed together into something she could not distinguish, but could not ignore either. They tugged at the edge of her consciousness, slowly plunging her deeper into a state of semi-awareness.

And then something else. She had felt it before, when she had come into contact with the 18th Angel. Not human.

But then, before she could dwell on this new, alien sensation, the First Child heard the voice at the back of her mind. It pleaded for help again. She could hear it breaking down, and calling out to someone.

"Who are you?" Rei asked without asking.

"Help me! Please, help me!"

The feelings began to solidify, taking shape, making words in her head: Eva, entry-plug, abandoned, death.

These were the pilot's thoughts, Rei knew. "How can I help you?"

"Please, it hurts!"

* * *

"All clusters on Sector 178 have fallen!" Haruna cried. "The firewall won't be able to hold this at bay."

Ritsuko nodded, leaning over her shoulder. "Activate all countermeasures in the nearby sectors," she ordered. "I want this thing contained before it can get to MAGI."

"Containment engaged," Hyuga announced. "Terminating all logical links to the corrupted sectors."

"Sector 179 has fallen!" Haruna said.

"Containment engaged for Sector 179!"

"Sector 180 has fallen!"

"Engage containment procedures on all Sectors from 000 to 200!" Ritsuko ordered, turning to Misato. "This is not going to work. It's running over the entire array, so it doesn't matter what we contain, it uses the array to load itself into a different sector. Once it goes past Sector 255, the only thing keeping it out of the MAGI will be the firewall."

"Sector 207 has fallen," Haruna cried.

Misato mulled over that piece of information but couldn't think of anything to do. "You are the computer genius, Ri-chan," she said. "What do we do?"

"When you have a virus running on a network, you isolate all the infected nodes on the network before the virus has a chance to spread. The problem here is that the virus has access to everything in this section that's linked to the communication's array. Viruses are self-replicating entities; this is not. All of its information comes from a single source: the Angel in Unit-08."

"If we could only terminate all the links between the Eva and us," Misato said. "Then it wouldn't be able to go anywhere."

Ritsuko shook her head. "It's overrun all the protocols, so we can't terminate the links."

"There has to be a way," Misato said. "It's using a damn wireless frequency. Half of the time, my cell-phone doesn't even work."

Ritsuko's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "That's it!" she beamed, and shot Misato a smile. "We don't have to terminate the link, all we have to do is interrupt it!"

"And just how do we do that?" Misato gave her a puzzled look.

"Electro magnetic pulse. That interrupts all communication signals, at best, for the length of the pulse. An N2 mine would buy us at least six seconds on which the entire array would be down, meaning that we could use the MAGI to take over the Input ports and close them. We scramble the protocols and lock the Angel out."

Misato blinked once, as all the information was processed in her brain, and nodded. "All right. Hyuga, call the air force."

* * *

Asuka blinked her eyes open and the first thing she felt was the throbbing pain on the side of her head, followed by nausea. She tried to reach to and rub the sore spot, but her left arm, the one that had carried the N2 mine was numb. One quick look at the outside confirmed that Unit-02 was missing that very same arm. Asuka snarled. She began to feel the blood running down the side of her forehead, from just under her hairline.

Her stomach hurt too. Her lower abdomen felt like a solid brick. She was probably bleeding inside her plugsuit.

Somehow, she pushed the pain away and managed to bring Unit-02 to a sitting position. Solid spikes of agony shot through her. She wanted to vomit. She was groggy, as if she had just woken up from a dream, and every part of her body that she could think of hurt.

"M-Misato?" No reply came. "Hey ... anybody there?"

Before she could start rationalizing any possible scenarios, a sound caught her attention. Asuka looked up, and in the sky she saw a single UN bomber flying a path that took it directly over the fallen Unit-08. The redhead focused her gaze on the darkened heap of metal, armor, flesh and dark stuff that had once being a Mass Produced Eva Unit.

She felt her stomach turn.

And yet it left strangely pleasing. That little bitch had teased her to tears, hadn't her? Taken something close to her and thrown it in her face. In front of everyone. She should hate her.

She did hate her.

The thought surprised and horrified Asuka at the same time. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to calm down. She brushed long locks of golden-red hair out of her face with her good hand. Blood was getting into her left eye. She could hardly see. It stung.

Then, in her pain and sickness another feeling began to blossom inside her, in her head. Something coming to life with hatred and anger, and she didn't understand it. It seemed so natural, like hunger or drowsiness. An instinct she was born with. She was the Second Child, wasn't she? Proud. Haughty. Unstoppable. Yet she hated everything about herself. It was time to turn that hate outward, to make someone else feel the way she always felt. Maybe then she could hate herself less.

The words appeared on her mind's eye.

_She hurt you. She made Shinji see you cry. She deserves to die. _

Asuka felt a gentle tickling sensation running down her left arm, from her shoulder to the tip of her fingers. The numbness disappeared. She bared her teeth and allowed a grin to spread across her features as she realized that Unit-02's severed arm had just regenerated.

And that feeling …

_Kill her. _

* * *

"Sector 249 has fallen!" Haruna cried.

There was no reply to that. All of the people present in the room stared at the picture on the main screen. They saw the small cylindrical object falling from the sky, and right on top of the corrupted Unit-08. The device went off, igniting a bright, unnatural sun in the middle of the street. The screens flickered as the EMP shock wave hit them.

As soon as it did, Ritsuko issued her orders. "Go! Engage containment procedures on all sectors. Engage the safety feedback protocol!"

"Sector 250 secured. Sector 249 secured!"

"Input port 352 secured!" Hyuga announced. "Ports 351, 350, 349, 348 secured!"

"Scramble the access protocols for all the ports!" Ritsuko commanded.

"Port 347 secured!" Hyuga yelled, excitement building on his voice.

"All access protocols have been secured!" Aoba cried, cracking a smile. "The Angel is cut off from our system."

The image on the main screen began to clear as the dust and particles lifted by the N2 mine's explosion started to clear. And then they saw it. Unit-08 picked itself up from among the ruins in the crater the bomb had just made. But it wasn't Unit-08 anymore.

It bellowed like an angry god, and spread its wings.

Misato did not hesitate to give the order she knew was her last hope. "Bring Unit-01 out of stasis."

The reply was not what she expected. "Major," Hyuga called. "Unit-02's readings, they … " the operator shook his head, his face aghast. "Everything's off the scale."

And then Misato's eyes flew wide open as she saw Unit-02 smashing itself headlong against Unit-08. "Asuka!"

"But just barely," Hyuga said, looking back at Misato. "Her thought pattern is 78.4% unidentifiable. It must be an error."

"Get me a channel," the Major ordered. "Now!"

"Can't. All the communications are down. We are cut off from her."

At that moment Ritsuko stepped in. "Route it through one of the internal ports and relay it to one of the surveillance stations. Give them the protocols so they can contact her from there."

"Yes, Ma'am!"

* * *

On Asuka's command, Unit-02 caught the corrupted Unit-08 squarely on its midsection.

The white Evangelion offered little resistance as it was pounded head-first into the ground. The earth shattered and cracked under the force of the impact. It bellowed angrily as Unit-02 wrapped its hands around its neck and, extricating it from the shattered terrain, tossed it through the air in the opposite direction.

Asuka groaned with the physical effort it took to handle the Mass Production Eva in such a way, but her most savage instincts had already taken over. She thought of nothing else. Nothing else mattered. Only the words inside her head.

_Kill her._

A fierce grin embraced Asuka's face. She watched in morbid delight as Unit-08 landed hard on its head again, rolling into its back, crushing building into a cloud of powered dust. She wasted no time pressing the attack.

The Second Child engaged the spike gun located on her Eva's shoulder pylons, which split open to reveal the nasty weapon. By the time Unit-08 was bringing itself to its feet, Asuka had positioned herself to the left, a clear shot.

A storm of long, metal spikes rained on Unit-08's body, from its navel to the base of its neck. Blood flowed and splashed through the air like a geyser, gushing from the many deep wounds and the spiked penetrated armor and flesh. It screamed, stumbling backwards. Asuka frowned when she realized that the Eva did not fall.

Not thinking, not feeling, not hurting, she engaged the second set of spikes from the opposite shoulder and fired.

_Kill her!_

The second wave of hard steel caught Unit-08 between the chest plate and its snout, bursting it as a single spike buried itself through the roof of its mouth. The Eva made a gentle arch backwards as it toppled to the ground, spurting blood as it went in rivers. The spikes protruded from it as if on a porcupine, a surreal sculpture of destruction.

It was still moving. Still attempting to fight. To come after her and crush her unless she acted first.

_KILL HER!_

Asuka was on top of the downed Eva as soon as it hit the ground. She took hold of one of the spikes from its chest and pulled it loose, sending an arch of blood flying through the air, and used it to stab her prey, viciously, repeatedly. The armor gave way, shattered and broken, the flesh underneath puncturing.

But something deep inside of her called for more.

The Second Child clutched what was left of Unit-08's armor and began tearing it off, like a hungry wolf picking clean a corpse. That was what she was, a red-haired Teutonic wolf. Not a victim. Not a girl who cried, or felt lonely or needed other people. She was a wolf, and wolves were merciless. She had to be as well.

Blood gushed out from the wounds, forming a lake of red on the ground. Bones cracked under the assault. In a moment of absolute rage, Asuka yanked at Unit-08's arm with all her might, tearing it free from the body with the sickening sound of ripping flesh, and stomped on its head, bursting it like a watermelon in a fountain of blood and tissue and gore.

It was still moving, almost pathetically now. Asuka brought down her teeth and bit into its neck and ripped out its throat. Blood bubbled from the gash; it made a noise that sounded like a whimper.

Then it stopped.

And Asuka stopped.

The radio crackled. "Asuka!" Misato yelled. "Stop! The neural link is still enabled! You are ..."

The Second Child looked down at herself, and saw Unit-02 towering atop a bloodied pulp of rendered flesh and armor, and was itself covered in its prey's blood. With eyes opened wide, blue orbs shaking uncontrollably, she stared at her gloved hands, frozen into claws.

Asuka saw her Eva's hands, blood smeared all over them. Blood everywhere.

And the images from her nightmares struck her. But this time it was real. This time she could not escape into her waking life, or into Shinji's room. The nightmare was all around her. It was in her rage, her hatred, her blood, her soul, her mind.

"Oh God ..." Her breathing quickened, becoming shallower and shallower. Her heart beat so fast and so hard it felt like a jackhammer inside her chest. "Oh G—"

She clamped her hands over her mouth and the sickness took over.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	11. Nightfall

Note: well, trying to get this preread was a hassle. Thanks go to Tabasco for volunteering. Thanks also go to Jimmy, Big D, and Nemo for the feedback and stuff. Also, and I shouldn't have to say it, but if you like this review it. Okay, that takes care of that.

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended **

**  
"Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others."**

**-George Santayana.**

**Genocide 0:11 / Nightfall **

* * *

The alarms had finally stopped. The sound of explosions faded away. All was quiet again.

Forced out of the backseat at gunpoint, Junichi Nakayima watched as the two uniformed thugs pulled the girl from the other car's trunk. He knew who she was, of course; if unwillingly, he was responsible for her being placed in this godawful situation and that knowledge only made the spectacle harder to bear.

It hadn't taken Kluge very long to put this together once he found out about Miko. Nakayima would do anything to keep her safe. That was the problem with finding someone to care for, because in this line of work loved ones could always be turned against you. Kluge had no scruples when it came to using people, and so Nakayima was forced to make a choice.

The agent took a deep, steadying breath, letting the late morning air flood into his lungs. The sun was reaching its high point. The sky was clear. A perfect day.

Well, almost perfect.

"See? I told you I'd get myself an audience." Musashi Kluge walked around the front of the car, nodding towards Nakayima and the other man standing behind him with a gun. "Now lets see how much she's actually willing to listen to."

The two black sedans were parked at the mouth of a large tunnel, one of the many that led in and out of Tokyo-3. With all the civilians in their designated shelters, the chances of running into anyone here next to nothing.

Feeling the gun press against his back, Nakayima let them lead him towards the girl he had betrayed.

Maya Ibuki certainly looked the part of an abduction victim, blindfold and all. Nakayima guessed that was more for psychological effect than anything else, but he wondered about the necessity of it at all. Kluge had not told him exactly what this was all about when he asked him—by pointing a gun at him and threatening Miko—to set the girl up. Nakayima knew by Kluge's own admission that he wouldn't kill him. But that, as the old man was keen to point out, did not apply to his blonde sweetheart.

So here he was, having brought pain and harm to someone who never wished him ill. And they hadn't even bothered to tell him why.

The agent could sense that whatever it was, Kluge needed Maya to be fully conscious, fully aware. In fact, Kluge had made a point of it. He was not simply going to ask her questions, because then none of this would have been necessary. Maya would have broken down in direct interrogation very quickly, Nakayima was pretty sure about that.

Kluge snorted. "Did you think I wouldn't do it?"

Nakayima swallowed hard and spoke with the most even voice he could find. "I didn't doubt for a minute that you wouldn't," he said. "Not for a minute."

Kluge seemed pleased. "Good."

A few feet up the road, a harsh shove brought the already-unsteady Maya to her knees. The pain that shot through her body as her knees impacted the hard surface of the road showed on her face. Her white stockings tore, the concrete scraping the delicate skin beneath. Nakayima could see her shaking and terrified.

As soon as her blindfold was removed and she recognized one of the figures walking towards her, Maya's eyes became wide open, her jaw dropped. "A-Agent Nakayima?"

He felt like the worse kind of scum and wanted to say something, to apologize, but Kluge gave him no opportunity.

"Lieutenant Ibuki?" the Chief said, dropping down on one in front of Maya. "I must apologize for your rough treatment thus far this morning. But certain measures had to be taken to insure that this meeting took place without foreign interference. Your Section 2 agents surely would have made a mess of things."

Maya spoke with a voice as shaky as the legs that had barely supported her moments before. "W-who are you?" she stammered, then looked squarely at Nakayima. "Agent Nakayima, w-what's going on?"

Nakayima let his gaze fall to the ground, his chest tightening with guilt. Maya Ibuki was one of the few people at NERV that had actually treated him as a human being throughout his assignment. While everyone else tried to avoid him, or looked at him with suspicion, she actually took the time to talk him. He had gotten to know her pretty well, all the more reason, perhaps, why Kluge had picked him for this.

"He doesn't matter," came Kluge's reply. "My name is Musashi Kluge, Chief of the Intelligence Department of the Japanese Ministry of the Interior. Your presence has been requested by me in the interest of our agencies … mutual cooperation."

Maya turned pale as her terrified eyes landed on him. She would know who Musashi Kluge was, obviously. Anyone who'd read the dossiers provided by NERV's intelligence branch to the Central Control Personnel would. "W-what do you want?" she said, her voice shaking.

Kluge gave her a serious glare. "I want to talk."

"T-talk?" Her eyes shifted from him over to Nakayima again, practically begging him for help as she spoke. "I-I'm really not the right person to talk to."

Kluge smirked. "On the contrary," he began. "You are exactly the right person to talk to. You see, I need someone who places a high level of value on human life. I was told that you would be just the person I needed to talk to."

Nakayima cringed visibly. Those where almost the exact words Nakayima had used in one of his earlier reports. 'Places a high level of value on human life.' He was sorry he ever wrote them. Sorry he met Miko. Sorry he came back from war. Sorry he was born.

Maya shook her head. "No. No, I can't. I don't have the authority…I don't…I can't do this."

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough, Lieutenant," Kluge said, making a gesture to one of the bodyguards who promptly retrieved something from inside his suit's jacket. "We will talk, otherwise…it would be such a waste."

Something cold pressed against the back of Maya's neck. At first it was almost like she failed to realize what the object was, but then it all seemed to click in her head. Such was the look of absolute terror on the young operator's face that Nakayima again forced himself to turn away, utterly loathing himself.

The barrel of the gun pushed Maya's head forward and down, as if in a twisted kind of formal bow, so that she could only gaze out at the ground between her legs, at her hands spread out beneath her, and at the small puddles her tears made on the rough pavement. It was only then that, no longer having to worry about her looking back at him, Nakayima returned his gaze to her.

She was crying.

"No…I…" Maya tried to say something, but nothing coherent came out of her. "I…I…don't…please…"

"Lieutenant Ibuki," Kluge began. "I don't wish to do this, but you see, I can't offer you any other choice. I had hoped you would listen, but since you have refused to cooperate I can not allow the knowledge of this meeting to spread. Undoubtedly, you wouldn't hesitate to give this information to Gendo Ikari if he asked, so I can't risk letting you go on your way. You understand, don't you?"

Maya shook her head weakly. "I…don't know anything," she whimpered in a barely audible voice, tears running down her face. "Please…I c-can't help you. Please, I don't want to die."

Nakayima could tell she was already broken. But Kluge was a sadist; he couldn't just have her do as he said, he had to make a point.

Gently, Kluge slipped his hand under Maya's chin and lifted it, bringing her gaze up with it so that the two of them were now able to look each other in the eye. The young operator stared deep in the void of Kluge's dark irises, as Nakayima had many times in the past. She would try to find some hint of sympathy, of emotion, of anything that would make him human, of anything that would compel him to spare her. But she would find nothing.

"Let me correct myself," Kluge said, his voice hard as steel, using his fingers to trace a path along Maya's elegant jaw line. "Are you willing to cooperate with me?"

The moment of silence that followed seemed like an eternity. Reflected on the girl's dull eyes, Nakayima could see the conflict that ravaged her mind. Everything within her seemed to be boiling, her mind crashing down around her sanity, her soul seeping away through her tears one drop at a time, the very essence of her being been taken away from her.

But by now she must have realized … she had to do something. She had to do the one thing she could.

Maya nodded.

"Well done, Lieutenant Ibuki." Kluge stood, and motioned to the bodyguard who got the hint and pulled the gun away from the girl's head. "You are indeed a very smart girl. It's a shame the position you find yourself in, but maybe when this is all over you could come and work for me."

He shoved his hand in his pocket and came up with a small disk, which he offered to Maya. "This is a dossier of things I require from you. Chief among them is a copy of one of your Evangelion's interface protocols."

Maya took the disk gently. Her hand shook. Everything about her seemed numb. Nakayima was pretty sure she was beyond rational thought, so giving her a copy of what they needed seemed like a logical, if unwarranted, action. Of course, any hard piece of information was a liability, but Kluge would not be overtly concerned with that. This girl had seen the lengths to which he was willing to go. She wouldn't be a problem for him.

"As you know, Lieutenant, our agencies have been at odds with each other since…ever," Kluge said. His voice acquiring an icy tone. "And the very nature of both our businesses , or rather, of the people in charge of those businesses, prevent us from ever truly co-existing. As a result, we can never thrive as long as the other is around. We can never, shall I say, achieve our utmost potential while the other stands in our way. This is why one must be removed."

Maya seemed to have a faint hint of where this was going, but fear kept her from saying a word. Her head spun and she looked like she was about to vomit.

"NERV will die," Kluge said and paused to allow his words to sink in. "I will see that it does. And when it dies, so will its people."

Despite everything, Maya managed to word a reply. "Y-you can't! M-most of NERV's personnel is c-civilian…they are innocents!"

Kluge gave her a contemptuous look. "Are they? Were the Japanese children in Hiroshima not innocents as well? Were those in Dresden? In Rwanda? Baghdad? Since when has being an innocent done anyone any good in warfare? Since when has being an innocent mattered?"

"B-but…"

"Innocents are numbers. However, some are more impressed with numbers than others. Which is why I'm offering you the chance to make the right decision," Kluge said. "And save some of your innocents in the process. You see, I need a weapon I can use against Gendo Ikari. And that weapon, which you will provide, is information."

Maya's throat stiffened. She swallowed hard. "Information?"

Kluge pointed towards the disk he had given her. "I have detailed what I need on that disk. I asked Agent Nakayima to get some of it for me, but he only ever had access to very limited material. As NERV's deputy Chief Scientist, you have…better access," he explained. "The deal is this: you get me what I want, and when the time comes, and it will come, NERV's personnel will be largely spared. Casualties minimized. Everyone treated in accordance with the rules of engagement. Everyone given a clean slate. Otherwise, well, genocide destroys more than people. It destroys dreams and hopes and witnesses."

He nodded towards the bodyguards. "And I think I have already demonstrated what will happen to YOU if you refuse." He turned to Nakayima. "And Nakayima knows what will happen to his new friend, and that pretty little brunette."

"You bastard!" Unable to restrain himself, Nakayima stepped threateningly towards Kluge. "You didn't say anything about Ke--" A kick to the back of his knee brought him down, groaning in pain.

Kluge regarded him with contempt. "You will always be an idiot, I'm afraid. Why would I threaten only one of them?"

Slowly, the gun at his back, Nakayima picked himself up, fists clenched in anger. "You would never get close to her. She's an Eva pilot. Section 2 will protect her."

"Don't be naïve." Kluge turned back to Maya. "I know this is very overwhelming for you right now, but I trust you to know what's in the best interest for yourself and others. I trust your humanity won't let you down." He stopped for a second, and nodded towards Nakayima before continuing. "Agent Nakayima knows what's at stake, don't you, Agent?"

Nakayima forced a reply. "I do. It won't come to that."

"I should hope to hear from the both of you very soon." With that the Chief Department gestured his bodyguards to get the car started. The man who had been standing behind Nakayima moved to the first car while the other when to the car that had brought Maya.

Silently, Kluge followed them, slamming the trunk closed, and climbed into the back seat without giving either Nakayima or Maya a second glance.

Nakayima waited for the cars to disappear around the nearest corner, before attempting to move to Maya, who was now trembling very badly. He made it to her side in three long strides. By then Maya was already unconscious on the ground.

* * *

Shinji ran with his heart in his throat. In the brightly-lit metal hallway his footsteps echoed impossible loud, but all he could really hear was the sound of his own labored breathing and the thundering of his heart.

There was no quick way to get from Unit-01's stasis cage to the main cage. Once his entry plug had been extracted, he bolted, rushing pass the assembled technicians who had come to tend to the Evangelion, dripping LCL as he went. Their cries from him to stop receded into the background.

He knew something had happened. He knew because Misato's voice had cracked when he asked for an update. He could see it in her face.

As the reached the end of the hallway, the space opened into a huge metal box. He immediately noticed the concrete platform descending from the ceiling. Strapped to it was the red armored bulk of Unit-02, and it looked … like it was completely covered in blood.

Without slowing down, Shinji turned left, onto a metal gantry and quickly up a set of stairs. The platform carrying Unit-02 stopped with the hissing of hydraulic pressure being released. A crane began extending as the armored cover over the slot where the entry-plug was inserted.

His steps were louder now on the bare metal, and they felt heavier. He was panting. He climbed another set of stairs into a higher gantry. He was now on the same level as the technicians working on retrieving Unit-02. There were familiar faces in the crowd, but Shinji didn't really see them. He couldn't see anything. Everything was a blur. His heart was going to explode. Still he ran.

The entry-plug began rising from the back of the Eva, the words EVA-02 printed on it in large back letters. The crane locked onto the end.

"Asuka!" Shinji yelled, a part of his mind knowing that she couldn't possible hear him.

But as she made to squeeze by the assembled group an arm darted across his chest, lifting his feet off the ground and bringing him to a halt as he was pulled into a tight embrace from behind. He struggled unthinking, overcome by fear for his redheaded roommate.

"Calm down, Shinji." It was Misato's voice. He hadn't noticed her. She was the one holding him back. "I told you to stay with Unit-01."

Shinji kept his eyes on the entry-plug as the crane set it down on the deck, where men in hazmat suits approached carrying a stretcher.

Shinji's pale-blue eyes grew wide with horror. He clutched at Misato, trying desperately to get free, twisting his body this way and that. She held him firmly. "Let me go!" he yelled. "Let me go, I have to see Asuka!"

"She's alright," Misato said soothingly. "It's just a precaution. We had to..." she trailed off, but it didn't matter. Shinji wasn't listening.

He stared as two of the men went inside the entry-plug. Asuka wouldn't need people to go inside with her. She was perfectly capable of--

The two men reemerged, carrying Asuka's small, svelte, and clearly unconscious form between them. The left side of her face was covered in blood. And although they were being gentle, carefully holding her below the armpits and around the back of her knees and trying to keep her head from rolling, Shinji felt his heart sink. Misato's arms tightened around him.

As gently as she had been carried out, Asuka was laid on the stretcher, her eyes closed, her lips parted, almost as if sleeping.

"No..." Shinji whimpered, his vision becoming blurry from tears. Then something snapped inside him. He began thrashing violently, screaming as loud as she could. "Asuka! Talk to me! Asuka, please!"

By now Misato had to struggle greatly to hold him back, lifting him up to keep him from gaining any leverage. She was not that much bigger than him, but it was enough. "Calm down, Shinji! She was hysterical. We had to knock her out. But she's fine!"

The men in hazard suits were checking Asuka's pulse, kneeling over her in a way that infuriated and frightened Shinji. They shone a light in her eyes, checking for something. Only vaguely did Shinji notice her normally pristine red plugsuit looked like it had something spilled on it.

"Let me go!" Shinji started kicking. "I have to see her!"

Misato's grip was weakening. She couldn't hold the struggling teenager much longer. "Hyuga!"

The operator rushed to their side and between the two of them they brought Shinji, kicking and screaming to the ground. "Shinji, take it easy," Hyuga was saying, his arms around the boy's waist. "Asuka's fine. We just need to check her out."

"Please!" Shinji screamed, not taking his wild eyes from the redhead as they place her hands on her lap and lifted the stretcher. Her head lolled slightly.

Only when the stretcher bearing the German redhead vanished from sight did Shinji stop screaming. All the anger and fear that he'd felt up until now melted into anguish. Still tightly enfolded in Misato's arms, he began to weep.

"I'm sorry," Misato said consolingly. "But there's nothing you could have done. She was out of control. She … all we could do to stop her was change the LCL pressure. If you had been out there she would have hurt you too."

Stop her? Stop her from doing what?

Hurt him … _too_?

And then a new, horrible thought entered his head. In his preoccupation for Asuka he had completely forgotten that she had not been sent out there alone. That there was someone else that she, just moments before, had bowed to protect. There was only one Evangelion in the cage when there should have been two; one pilot recovered instead of two.

Shinji turned his head, looking over his shoulder, and saw Misato's sullen face for the first time. "Mi-Misato," he whimpered. "Where's Keiko?"

Misato looked away. Her breathing was heavy. Shinji could feel her chest rising and falling, pushing against his back. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know that's not an excuse … Asuka, she … we still don't know."

It didn't make any sense. Shinji didn't understand. "Where's Keiko?" he asked again, an awful feeling twisting his stomach.

"I'm sorry," Misato said, still refusing to meet his gaze. "Ritsuko's gone out there to see what's left."

"What's … left?" Shinji repeated, even as the horrific implications of what she was saying sank in.

Hyuga had let go now, realizing Shinji was no longer likely to struggle. Misato's grip eased as well, but she kept her arms around him loosely in what was now undoubtedly a hug of sympathy.

* * *

Something soft was touching her cheek, and that was all Maya knew as she opened her eyes. She found herself lying on a bed, in a place she had never seen before: a tiny room with no decorations and only the scarcest of amenities, including a small TV in the corner of the room. She sat up, struggling to keep herself from panicking.

The strangely soft voice caught her attention. "Are you okay?"

Maya twisted her head to find the agent sitting on a stool next to her, with his back to the wall, and a glass full of a bubbly liquid in his hands. The look on his face was that of a man defeated.

"I…I think I am," she replied in a whisper, but her stomach didn't quite agree. "I don't know."

"Here," Nakayima said, offering her the glass. "It'll help you fell better."

Maya took the offered glass, but did not drink it. Instead, she eyed it suspiciously. Nakayima picked up on this at once. "I don't want to hurt you, Lieutenant Ibuki," he said. "I am really sorry you were dragged into this, but…but it was necessary. They didn't leave me a choice."

The spike of pain in his voice practically compelled Maya to believe him. She knew such naïveté was her weakness, that it rendered her insufficiently cynical for her job. That was the way she was. Even spending so many hours with someone like Ritsuko Akagi had not changed that. But this man—how could she believe him? After what he and his boss had done?

"I hope you can forgive me," Nakayima continued. "But I won't blame you if you don't."

Maya took a deep breath. Fear still soaked her. Her voice sounded weird, hoarse. "W-where are we?" she asked with a gasp.

"My apartment," Nakayima said. "You were out quite a while before they took you out there, the effect of the sedative they gave you I suppose. There was an emergency declared in the meantime. Level One Alert." He noticed her shocked expression and added, "The news said it was an Angel. We know there were two N2 detonations, but I don't know anything aside from that. After the alert cleared you were brought out to the tunnel. After that I thought about taking you home, but, well, I don't remember where you live. So here we are, my place." He gestured around them. "Not much for decoration, I know."

That last statement made Maya feel strangely better. "Home is were you make it."

"It isn't home, it's just a place. And I guess it's better than living underground," he replied, briefly giving her as sincere a grin as he could muster before turning serious again. "Don't worry, it's safe. You don't have to be afraid here."

"I-I…thank you."

"Don't thank me," Nakayima said. "It was nothing. I had to do something for you. Anything. Right now, you may not like me, you may even hate me, but you are right in doing so."

"I don't hate you," Maya whispered, dropping her gaze to the glass in her hands. Now that she was reasonably sure it wasn't poison, she drank. "I just…I don't understand. Why me?"

"Because you have access to what the Ministry needs, because you could be 'motivated' to cooperate, because you are soft. The list goes on and on." Nakayima stopped and took a breath. "But…I was the one who told them you would cooperate."

Maya gave him an awkward stare. "Why?"

"I needed to give them something," Nakayima said. "They want things I can't provide. I asked Major Katsuragi before to help me, but she's been too busy. Problems with the children, I gather. And the Evas and everything else she has to deal with. At any rate, I don't think there's anything she could have done. But these people, they don't mess around. Specially not Kluge. He's been wanting to get at Gendo Ikari for a very long time, and he won't stop at anything. I should tell you, yours and mine are not the only lives at stake here."

"I remember," Maya said. "The brunette … did he mean Keiko Nagara?"

"Yeah." A shadow of regret crossed his face. "Originally he threatened Miko. Miko Mineguno—from your maintenance division. I didn't think he would go after Keiko too. She's a child. Who would go after a child?"

"If we believed that nobody would, we wouldn't have assigned them bodyguards," Maya said with a hint of bitterness. "Specially Eva pilots. But why Miko?"

"Because I … we had dinner the other night. The three of us."

Maya understood. "You said there was an alert?" He nodded. "Well, he wouldn't have had any luck getting to Keiko. He would have to go through several tons of armored Evangelion to get to her. And, in all likelihood, through Asuka if she was with her."

"I've heard some stories about the Second Child. Never met her though," he admitted. "Miko was so proud of Keiko, I have to imagine all the children are special."

Maya nodded. That was, in fact, one of the few reason she had never moved on from NERV. Her job was the easy one, and it didn't require her to place herself in mortal danger. If there children willing to place themselves in far more dangerous situation, then it was her duty to help them in any she could. But she could not have imagined that she would end up getting kidnapped, and forced at gunpoint to betray everything she believed in.

And now that, for the first time, her life was threatened, not by Angels but by men, he wasn't sure what she was supposed to do.

"You are wrong, you know?" she said.

Nakayima gave her an inquisitive glance. "About what?"

"About me having access to what your Ministry needs," Maya said. "There is too much about NERV that I don't know anything about. Too many secrets and lies. So much that at one point, when you stop to think about it, you wonder why it's worth giving your life. Or why it'd be worth anybody's life."

"That happens to everyone, regardless of your line of work," he said. "When I was in the army, the first time they ordered us to torch a village I questioned everything I thought I knew."

Maya noticed the hint of pain in the agent's voice. "This Kluge character," she ventured, "will he really do what he says he'll do?"

Nakayima nodded solemnly. "Men like him don't bluff. It's quite ironic, actually. Kluge is so much like Gendo Ikari that they could have been brothers. People like that are bound to fight each other, and their similarities only make them fight harder. Too much familiarity, too much conflict. They know what they are capable of, and the thought that there are others just like them scares them to death. They play this game as if it were some sort of civil war. Like two kings warring over a kingdom."

Maya sighed. "But this is not a war, Agent Nakayima."

"No kingdom can have two kings, Lieutenant."

Maya took his words in, allowing them to reach deep into her being. She drew her knees to herself as tight as she could, and tried to forget the sudden coldness she felt. "That village you torched, where was it?"

"Malaysia," he said, his voice heavy with some long forgotten memory he'd rather not remember. "I spent a month not being able to sleep after that. Eventually it got easier, but … that says quite a lot about humanity, doesn't it? That we are able to get used to things like that. When other people's pain and suffering no longer bothers us."

Again, Maya was reminded of Ritsuko Akagi, and the Commander. "That sounds like a lot of people I know."

"But not everyone, right?" Nakayima corrected. "As long as there are those who are willing to understand one another there is hope. I know now that's what Miko and Keiko gave to me. Hope. So I must do what I can to protect them. Again, I'm truly sorry you where brought into this."

Maya lingered a moment, taking in his words and deciding that he was right. Then she climbed out of the bed and rose as straight as she could, her knees wobbly and her stomach not completely settled.

She handed Nakayima the glass, now empty, and checked her pocket to find the disk Kluge had given her, though she didn't remember putting it there. No matter. For now, she needed to find out about the alert. The fact that they were still alive meant it was a victory, but there was probably a mess to clean. "I need to get to Dogma."

Nakayima looked her over. "You don't look so good. Are you sure you don't want to go home first?"

"It's my duty to be there. Like it's your duty to protect those you love. Will you drive me?"

"I'll get my keys."

* * *

The only sign that the girl on the other side of the glass barrier was still alive was the shallow sound of the respirator. Almost nothing of her features could be seen; her eyes were covered by bandages which wrapped around her head, the respirator and the flat plastic fitting that held her mouth open covered the lower half of her face. Only the delicate nose was visible. Her brunette hair was disheveled, spilling out over the examination table on which she had been set.

As Rei Ayanami let her gaze descend down the girl's young body, she took in the scope of her injuries, finally putting images to the detached summary she had head a moment ago. The girl's right arm was in a cast, as it had been shattered in several places. Her left arm was heavily bandaged, and the bandages extended up her shoulder and across her chest. More bandages below the breasts, which moved gently as the girl was all but forced to breathe. Her right leg was also in a cast, compound fractures on both the femur and fibula. Part of her thigh muscle had been removed, too damaged.

Electronic leads where attached to several places on her body and then to other machines. Tubes extended from a cup between her legs. Aside from the casts and the bandages the girl was naked.

In the red light, the skin seemed to have lost its color, and in some parts it looked as if it had been burned off.

This was the girl, Rei knew, whose pain she had felt from so far away. Whose shock and desperation had, for the first time in her life, made her feel pity for another human being.

Behind her, she could still hear Dr. Akagi talking. "... no danger of physical contamination, though I did not really expect to find any. But her EEG is off the scale. Her brain is still in overdrive. Eventually, it will crash."

"Perhaps you should put an end to this," Commander Ikari said. He was standing behind the doctor on one of the medical consoles. "There is no sense in making the girl suffer any longer."

He had flown back from Kyoto with surprising promptness; Rei had expected him to take his time after the situation had been taken under control. In truth, she hoped he would because it would give her a chance to seek out the girl, whose name she did not even know and yet for whom she felt had struck a powerful connection.

Pain was an easy thing to ignore for someone who had lived in pain most of her life. But this girl's pain had been on a completely different level. Cathartic even. It was not simply physical, and not simply emotional. It was like a cry out of her very soul, a ripple expanding outward and hitting Rei across time and space. She knew that such a thing ought not to have been possible, but it was and she could not deny the idea that there was a reason for it.

The her feeling this girl's pain somehow had a purpose.

"Her mind might still recover," Ritsuko said, her eyes fixed on one of the monitor. "We can only guess how badly it's been damaged but she's not a vegetable. Since there's no danger, I'll have her moved into the Cranial Nerve Ward's ICU. The doctors will take care of her and she won't be a drain to other resources."

Commander Ikari nodded, a slow, deliberate tilt of his head. "What about the Second Child?"

"I was meaning to talk to you about her," Ritsuko said. "She is in quarantine for the moment. Probably will be for the next few days until we can determine what happened. Obviously, after such prolonged contact with the Tablet's interface the fact that she didn't lose her mind is remarkable. I pulled the logs from Unit-02 in an attempt to determine the level of mental contamination she was exposed to, but they were blank."

Even in the low-light environment, where only the outlines of shapes were highlighted in a red glow, Rei saw Commander Ikari draw down his brow. "Blank?"

"The logs are shielded against electromagnetic interference, so it was not the EMP that did it," Ritsuko said. "They were erased. My best guess is by the Tablet's doing."

Commander Ikari considered in silence. Then said, "Does it have access to the logs?"

"It has access to everything wired to it, and even things that are not. Every link to the Eva, physical or otherwise. Which is a problem given all the other things we do not know."

Ritsuko paused, leaning back on her chair. "We know on our end that the pattern divergence was nearly 80%," she continued. "The Eva should not even work then. It should not even recognize the pilot as being connected to it. It would be the same as there being no pilot at all. The interface is designed to enhance the connection, not to replace the pilot. But there is still too much we don't understand. How Asuka was able to activate Unit-02 during the battle with Samael, for example."

"Do you have a hypothesis?"

"I think the very thing that prevented her from synchronizing with the Eva is what allowed her to survive the original contact. Her mind was shut tight. The connection to the Eva is a passive one, under normal circumstances. It cannot force itself on a reluctant pilot. This is not so with the Tablet. Its purpose is to connect the pilot and Eva and it is far more aggressive. In Asuka's case I suspect it acted like a crowbar, slowly prying her mind open and it's been doing that ever since."

"Are you saying it is slowly poisoning her mind?" Ikari asked.

"Given the signal interference in her A-10 link and the large divergence in the thought pattern, it is safe to suppose she has been exposed to severe feedback from the system,"Ritsuko said. "There is nothing that says the contact has to be immediately destructive. We saw it happen in the Chinese Branch with tremendous violence, but without the pilot's psychological records I can not reach a conclusion on that. Then you have Nagara, a very weak-minded individual."

Ritsuko cast a glance to the girl lying beyond the glass. "She didn't last long. Asuka is different. Her mind is not just shut tightly, she is also incredibly strong-willed. Consider that when Rei met the construct it almost killed her; when Asuka did, she activated Unit-02 and destroyed Samael. Every experience is different."

The construct? Rei remembered the experience of activating Unit-00 the first time, standing on an ocean of red, under a glowing red sky with a dead tree behind. She remembered that she had talked to it, whatever IT was, and that it made her sick.

Had the Second been there as well? And if so, what had it done to her?

"And yesterday ..." Ritsuko continued. "I am afraid it has gone too far. You have seen the recording. You saw what she did and how she did it. We are still picking up the pieces. But the fact is that she can not control it anymore. For all intents and purposes, it was controlling her. And if that is the case, then she is a huge liability."

"Then what would you suggest?"

"We need to purge Unit-02," Ritsuko said bluntly. "We can not allow it to work with its current software interface."

"The Tablet is the only thing that permits the Second Child to synch with the Eva. Without it, she would go back to being useless to me."

"Unfortunately, I believe the risks far outweigh the rewards. You can simply have the Second Child's designation rescinded and Unit-02 mothballed. But as long as the Tablet remains part of its operating system you will not even be able to assign a new pilot to it. It needs to be purged so at least we know it does not present a risk to any possible future pilots should you chose to go that route, or if we are forced to use it again, like we were before, out of desperation. We need to know that it will not try to kill us when we throw the switch."

The Commander did not reply. Rei had spent enough time close to him interpret the signs; he was not in agreement. It bothered her that the Second was only being discussed in terms of her ability to pilot Eva. At no point did they seem to consider her existence as a human being. Like the wounded girl on the other side of the glass, she was there to serve a purpose, nothing more.

Rei felt anger. They had suffered so much, all of them. They had given everything, and were even ready to give their lives, to have their futures and their childhoods ruined, but these things were not even considered. Rei herself was different, she had always understood that. She was conceived as a tool with a set purpose. But the other children …

They did not deserve this.

Rei turned her gaze back to the girl. Nagara, Ritsuko had said. She remembered the name of one of her classmates—Keiko Nagara. A shy girl, unassuming and quiet, like Shinji Ikari.

So much like him ...

She had never talked with her, and the girl had never approached her. She had only caught glimpses of her sitting in class, in the gym. Only glimpses of a life now shattered.

And, though she knew that life was fleeting and full of pain, Rei found tears misting her eyes. Slowly, so as not to arouse suspicion, she lifted her hand to wipe them away. Why was she crying? She did not understand. When Kaworu Nagisa was killed, she did not cry; when her own life was threatened, she did not cry.

Then why here? Why now, for a girl she barely knew?

Rei looked down at her hand; she could feel the moisture on her fingers but there was too little light. Even if she could not see them, the tears were there, and with them remained the lingering traces of feelings she had despite not being able to properly define.

The Commander and the Doctor were still talking, but their words sounded empty in a way she failed to notice before.

"... we never intended to fight multiple iterations. The Tablet was supposed to buy us some time. We severely underestimated its capabilities. That thing we saw yesterday, I can't even begin to explain it. We know the Tablet can recombine the Eva's DNA. In the end it is nothing more than releasing protein chains in the correct sequence times a few million. But nothing like that."

"What did you tell Katsuragi?"

"Some astrophysics bullshit. She bought it. Unit-08 never stood a chance against Unit-02. And if you think Unit-A was bad, you need to start considering the fact that, unlike the Chinese pilot, the Second Child is fully trained, easily manipulated emotionally, and lethal."

"Without Unit-02 we will be forced to deploy Unit-01."

"Then we will have to. Unit-01 is far more reliable and we can control it."

Rei focused inwards. Control … it was all about control. It had always been.

"Very well," Commander Ikari said after a long, heavy silence.

"I will need access to everything to ensure a complete purge, otherwise there is a risk of leaving traces of the code behind. That means bringing Unit-02 on-line again. A full activation. I would like to have Unit-01 out of stasis, just in case."

"Only if it is absolutely necessary."

Ritsuko agreed, though Rei did not hear her do so. She had listened to enough of the conversation to know this was what she wanted. Then, after another moment of silence, she heard her name being called.

"Rei,"Commander Ikari said. "We should go now."

Rei did not turn to look at him as she normally would; her attention remained squarely on Keiko Nagara's helpless form, lying there, broken and alone. "I wish to stay," Rei said softly.

"No."

Rei's hand clenched by her side into a fist. She did not want to go. She did not want to be anywhere near this man who used her and cared not at all for her. She had no bonds with him, not even those left behind by her predecessor. She had looked up to him almost as a father because he had raised her, but those feelings had died with her. They were dead, as she was dead.

And though she would have to follow him for now, this Rei Ayanami resolved that she would see Keiko Nagara again. With or without his permission.

* * *

"It's borderline Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," the physician, a brown-haired woman, said, nodding slightly towards the space beyond the observation window. "Physically, at least, her body is mostly recovered. A few stitches over her left eye, a minor concussion, and there is still some lingering discomfort on the shoulder. Nothing major. Also, she was menstruating at the time of the battle, probably a few days into her period. Bloodwork showed very elevated hormone levels."

"She never said a thing," Misato replied and hoped that the amount of stress she felt didn't reflect on her voice. "I guess she was embarrassed."

"And we still can't get her to sleep on her own. She says she has nightmares so we are giving her sleeping pills at night, but she isn't very cooperative. Violent, even. We tried to assign her the same nurse detail as last time. The thinking was they would be familiar faces to her. She didn't take very well to them. After the first day we had to shuffle the assignments."

Misato shifted her stance awkwardly, arms wrapped around herself. "Asuka hates this place. She spent three months here all alone. I would hate it too. No offense."

"She was never alone," the doctor corrected, sounding peeved. "Despite her attitude there are always people willing to check up on her."

"Yeah, I know," Misato sighed. "Sorry. I don't mean to dismiss what you do. It's just that …" realizing that she didn't really have to say anything, and that she didn't feel like picking at old wounds, she trailed off.

"At least she's better off than that other poor girl," the doctor said. "We transferred her this morning. I'm not a religious woman, but the fact that she is still alive surely has to be a miracle. I have never seen such traumatic injuries on such a young girl. We don't even know if she will wake up." She frowned. "How could anyone do that to someone else?"

Misato said nothing. Those words left a sour taste in her mouth. Most of the personnel immediately concerned with handling the Evangelions had done what they could to keep Asuka's involvement in Keiko's injuries a secret. Namely, that she was the one responsible for them. It was a combat situation and without having debriefed either of them—Keiko for obvious reasons and Asuka at Misato's own request—no one could be sure of what actually happened.

Certainly, had this been an ordinary Angel, Asuka would have been expected to act how she did. Nobody would begrudge her for it.

But the fact that it had been another Eva, one of their own, with a fellow pilot, and the vicious way in which she had fought and her own history of violent behavior, meant some people were not willing to give Asuka the benefit of the doubt.

When they had used the Dummy so that Unit-01 could take down the corrupted Unit-03, Shinji had been little more than a passenger along for the ride as his Eva tore apart its target. As far as anyone could tell, Asuka had acted entirely on her own. Before anyone could assess the situation and without orders.

Misato did not want to believe she wanted to hurt Keiko, but she had to know the other girl was still connected to Unit-08. She had to know she would feel everything.

And the sheer brutality she had shown … completely inhuman. Even Misato, who thought she knew her moderately well, was appalled. Asuka was like an animal ripping into a lump of flesh; utterly nightmarish.

Misato was glad it was Ritsuko who had gone to recover Unit-08. As part of her duties, she had filed a report, which Misato had to sign off on. There was also a video, probably because someone thought it would help catalog the damage. There was torn flesh, ripped armor and splintered bones everywhere in sight. Worse of all, the image of Keiko's little broken body being pulled out of the entry-plug was still burned into her mind. For the young girl, Misato had thought, death may have been a more merciful fate.

With a heavy heart, Misato had read the latest update on her condition. Keiko was taken out of isolation into the ICU earlier, after Ritsuko had cleared her from possible contamination. She would never recover fully, if she lasted long enough to become aware again, and if her mind was not already completely destroyed; she would never be who she was before.

And Misato needed only look through the thick piece of glass that linked the quarantine room to the observation space, in which her, the doctor—a pediatrician by training—and an awfully quiet Haruna Ieil stood, to know that perhaps all the time in the world wouldn't be enough for Asuka to recover either.

The quarantine room was big, illuminated by bright lights, and sparsely furnished. There was a bed set against the far wall, lined by computer and medical equipment, a tiny desk with all sorts of medical supplies in the corner, and in another there was a tiny partition behind which was located a toilet.

Asuka lay on the bed, clad only in a loose white gown, her golden-red hair the only color in the room. She was on her side, facing them. Her expression was lax, her eyes dull and showing signs that the sleeplessness had started to take a toll. The line of stitches above her left eyebrow was mostly hidden by her bangs.

In the hour that Misato had been there she had not moved at all. She just lay there and stared emptily, the dreary silence of quarantine interrupted only by the beeping of the machine connected to monitor her vitals.

Misato did not know if it was the lighting or something else, but she looked awfully pale. "She's not in any danger, is she?"

The doctor shook her head. "Only from herself, to be honest. Self-mutilation is the next logical step. We thought about restraining her."

"I guess it wouldn't do if I offered to take her out of your hands," Misato suggested, having already decided that she needed to get Asuka out of here as soon as possible.

"My responsibility to her is to make sure she's looked after," the doctor said, turning an offended eye to Misato. "Regardless of how difficult she is to manage. She is still my patient."

She was dedicated, Misato had to give her that. "I'm just eager to take her home. Maybe a little too eager. But seeing her like this bothers me. It's so unlike her."

"Forty-eight hours is the rest of her term." The doctor shifted her feet so she was fully facing Misato. "I have to release her then unless I get new orders from Dr. Akagi. However, I don't think it's a good idea. I am not a psychologist, but I've read her dossier. Between her undiagnosed Narcissistic Personality Disorder and now showing symptoms of PTSD, she is quite the powder keg. In fact, I would say it is only a matter of time before she exploded, but, well … I am sure you know what I mean."

Sadly, Misato did. The result of that explosion was now lying hooked up to life support a floor below them. She could not help but feel a little responsible too. After all, she should have seen the signs, and it was her who sent them out there together. But she had wanted to believe that, while Asuka might not like Keiko, she would not really do anything to hurt her.

Except, of course, that she already had. In the simulator.

"There is not much more I can do for her save give her a prescription for sleeping pills and maybe some anti-depressants," the doctor said. "I can give her stronger medication, but then she'd have to deal with nasty side effects. I think that would do more harm than good, and it's not like she will take them anyway. That is unless somebody becomes responsible for her. She obviously can't do it for herself."

Misato was inclined to agree but, as she had been when Ritsuko first suggested it, she was still reluctant to have Asuka medicated. Despite everything, it seemed like an outrageous violation of her person. "You really think she will hurt herself?"

The doctor nodded almost eagerly. "She's textbook."

"Write her a prescription," Misato finally said. "I'll see what I can do." She turned her head to get a glance of Haruna. The young Lieutenant hadn't said a word since entering the room behind the other two women. "Haruna?"

Haruna didn't even blink. She was staring intently at Asuka, clutching her clipboard to her chest as if for protection. Misato could guess what she was thinking without too much trouble. Haruna had been in the control room during the last battle. She was one of the few that had actually witnessed Asuka tear Keiko apart with her own eyes.

Misato raised her voice. "Haruna!"

Snapping suddenly back to reality, Haruna blinked herself into attention. Misato noticed that her shoulders tensed awkwardly. "Yes, Major Katsuragi?" she acknowledged.

Misato raised an eyebrow. "Are you okay?"

"Just tired." The reply came in an extremely worn out voice, something very unusual for Haruna as she was usually the upbeat sort, part of why Aoba liked her so much. "The last few days have been difficult."

"Difficult on all of us, but we still have jobs to do," Misato said, ignoring the fact that the girl staring at Asuka like had meant she was probably lying. Not that she wasn't tired, because they all were and she looked it, but that was not why had failed to respond. "Your report. You said you had something interesting."

Haruna nodded. "It's not what I have, but what I don't have," she said, and pulled her clipboard to read from it. "We ran pretty much every test in the book on Unit-02 and we found nothing."

There was a spark of surprise in Misato's eyes. "You are kidding. How is that possible? We have the data from the MAGI. Something had to cause that discrepancy."

"For every test we have run, the answer is the same: machine error. It makes sense, a 78% signal discrepancy would not even allow the pilot to synchronize with the Eva, and we not only had a solid link between Asuka and Unit-02, but her synch-ratio actually increased by about twenty points." Haruna took a deep breath. "Maybe we should just consider the possibility that Asuka--"

"Great," Misato interrupted, refusing to let her get to where she knew she was going. "Soon we'll have to hire a psychic to tell us what the hell goes on in this place."

"But, Major, maybe we should just accept that ..."

The warning glare from Misato stopped her in her tracks. Keiko was a victim here, of that there was no doubt, but she wasn't about to let anyone drag Asuka through the mud. She deserved better after all she had done.

Haruna looked decidedly ashamed, color rising to her cheeks. "Sorry, Major. I know you care about her. I didn't mean to imply that …" Her head dropped. "I'm sorry."

Like any good leader in her position, Misato tried her best to let it go. "It's not your fault." She forced a quick smile, then it was gone. "But there's something here we are missing here. Hyuga triple-checked the readings and he discarded the possibility of an error. Something about the wavelengths, but I'm not sure."

"There is nothing left in the procedure guide besides going over every bit of information to make sure it's free of errors and running the data checks again," Haruna said. "But that would take a really long time."

"Can we do it?"

"If someone can talk Dr. Akagi into it, yes."

"Would you do it?" Misato said. The tone of her voice indicated an order rather than a request. "And while you are at it, I need a favor. I want Asuka to get some time off. No tests, no Unit-02, no anything. Ritsuko will not agree to this. But if we nag her we might be able to persuade her. She will argue that Asuka has to be brought back to combat status as quickly as possible, but I don't think she will risk Asuka having a mental breakdown because she needs an operational weapon."

"I agree," the doctor interjected. "In fact, I'll recommend this in the release forms."

Misato nodded, grateful. "Thank you."

"Dr. Akagi is not gonna like this," Haruna said. "Not at all. She hates being countermanded."

Misato's sigh was as heavy as her mood. "Yeah, tell me about it."

* * *

The bright hallway that stretched before him was, for Junichi Nakayima, like the path leading to a fate he was not sure he wanted, and one he could avoid. He was aware of the horrible sight he'd see, sure that it was more than he could bear.

That was why he had stood on the very same spot now as he had for the last fifteen minutes, and struggled to convince himself that there was really no reason for him to go down there. At best, he would be just another intruder.

Nakayima had tried not to think about it. It would have been easier to grow wings and fly away.

During the five days since the incident, Miko was all he thought about. She was all he dreamed about. And the fear of what he would see or hear when he first confronted her sent chills up his spine. She was facing a horrible tragedy, and he felt compelled to do something to ease her suffering, but what could he do? There was nothing he could say to comfort her now. The magnitude of her tragedy seemed too unfathomable; too alien to everything he'd come to understand. Though he was not the emotional type, this had gotten to him no matter how much he tried to deny it.

He'd grown fond of Miko, almost too fond to be comfortable with her. And through her, he'd gotten to meet Keiko.

But Nakayima knew, disgustingly, that he was not here for Keiko. Even though her suffering did strike a cord in him, and he did feel sorry for her, it was Miko who was foremost in his mind.

The girl had become an important part of life for him. She had made him feel like he was worth something. She had made him take stock on his life and forced him to acknowledge the fact that people were important. She had wedged herself deep into his heart, the very same heart that he now felt hemorrhaging, and had stirred within him something he had never felt before.

And despite all this, Nakayima found himself having to fight a titanic struggle just to gather enough courage to comfort her.

Miko had been wrong about him. She had, like the naïve young woman she was, assumed the best of him. Assumed he would become her friend and be there for her, and Nakayima had done that during dinner that night. It was easy enough; she was drunk and he was buzzed. But this was beyond anything was capable of enduring.

And if what the young pilot was going through was painful even to someone like him, then he could not imagine what it was like to Miko. She must have been devastated.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't look her in the eye and talk to her and tell that it was going to be all right. Because it wasn't. Because he didn't believe it ever would. Miko would turn to him for comfort and find that he had none to give because of his own fear. The fear that she had become more to him than he would dare admit.

The sound that brought him back to reality was the instantly recognizable, all-business voice of Ritsuko Akagi. "Agent Nakayima?"

Nakayima shook his head to clear it and glanced over at the blonde doctor making her way towards him with a clipboard under her right arm and a neutral expression of her features. "Dr. Akagi."

"Are you lost?" Ritsuko asked, coming to stand next to him. There was a little edge on her voice. Her eyes, behind thin framed glasses bristled.

"No," he said stupidly. "Why?"

"I wouldn't expect to see you around here," Ritsuko said, and shook her head. "The Cranial Nerve Ward isn't the sort of place you come to snoop around."

"I'm not snooping," he said. "I'm … I'm here for someone."

She pinned him with a look that was practically as good as a lie detector. Unconsciously, his eyes flickered down the hall, and she followed him. Sharp as he had read in her file, Ritsuko got it immediately. "You shouldn't bother," she told him. "You don't have clearance, and I can't break patient-doctor privilege."

"Are you saying I'm going to need a warrant to find out how she's doing?"

"You work for the government," she said coolly. "I'm sure you could manage. When you do that, you can come back here. Until then I'm afraid you will have to be escorted out." She removed a square devise from her pocket that looked like a small, black pager.

"Wait!" Nakayima lifted a hand, giving up the pretense. "Please, I can't go down there. But I'm worried about her."

Ritsuko's face remained stoic as she lowered the pager and placed it back in her pocket. "She's nothing to you, so why should you care? You are just asking for trouble. And if you did care, you wouldn't be standing around. You'd be down there."

She turned her back to him. "I won't report you, but you can't stay here. It's late. You should probably leave."

Leaving him to make his decision, she walked away, her heels clicking on the tiled floor, the tail of her lab coat trailing behind her. He turned back to stare at the hallway from where she had come, as uncertain as he had ever been.

He did not hear her footsteps, and only realized he was not alone after Rei Ayanami walked pass him, silent as a ghost. Her head of short sky-blue hair bobbed slightly as she moved, her school uniform seeming so out of place Nakayima wondered if he was hallucinating.

An impulse made him call to her. "Miss Ayanami?"

The girl stopped. "Excuse me?"

Aside from Keiko, he had never met any of the children. Under other circumstances it would seem normal for them to visit each other when one of their number was injured. He imagined the shared a kinship not so different from that created between soldiers, between people who risked their lives together.

That analogy made him uncomfortable. Children soldiers—they were barely teenagers. At seventeen he had been old enough to decide and be mistaken on his own. He had been an adult. From what he understood these children were selected almost at birth. And Rei Ayanami was the first. The things she must have seen in her short life …

Rei did not wait for him. Before it became apparent he was not going to say anything, she had already resumed her pace.

* * *

The door to Keiko Nagara's room was not locked. Having spent a lot of her time in the installation and with most of the schematics in her head, Rei had no trouble finding it. Commander Ikari would not approve. His interest in her did not seem to include indulging her curiosity, nor should it. But this feeling, this desire to know that she had awakened in her now, urged her like an invisible hand.

Rei opened the door, stepping into the darkened room beyond, and closed it quietly behind her. Most of the space was taken up by medical equipment centered around a bulky bed in the middle of the room. Keiko was as she remembered her; her eyes and most of her body covered in bandages. A sheet had been placed over her to shield her modesty, for the benefit of others rather than her own. Breathing through a respirator, she sounded unnatural. Her leg was propped up.

It took her a moment to note they were not alone. There was a woman lying in an improvised bunk nearby, sleeping. She was blonde and wore NERV's familiar tan uniform.

As Rei approached Keiko's bed the woman stirred. Slowly, she opened her eyes, and, noticing Rei's presence she began to sit. "Wha ..." She rubbed her eyes and looked up. The dark hid her expression well, but her body seemed heavy. "Ayanami?"

"Yes."

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked, her voice sounding weird, shaky, as if she had trouble using it.

Rei turned her head to the bed. "I came to see her."

The woman seemed taken aback. Her body closed up, drawing her knees closer, her arms wrapping around her chest. "That's … that's very nice of you."

"Is it?" Rei asked.

"No one else has come," the woman said, moving her head up and down. She raised a hand to her face. Rei heard her whimper. "I … I had almost expected Major Katsuragi. She was always concerned about Keiko. But I guess she has Soryu to deal with."

Rei was puzzled. "The Second?"

The woman lifted her head, covering her mouth with her hand as she nodded. Even in the dark there was no hiding the fact that she was crying. "Don't you know?" she said brokenly between sobs. "That horrible girl, she … she attacked my Keiko. My little sister, she … she ..."

That was a far as she got. The rest of the words melted into desperate, anguished crying. Rei listened to her for a moment, feeling like she could not really connect to her suffering but also like she was not completely alien to it. There was a time when would not have know what to make of this display of human emotion. But Shinji Ikari had opened her eyes. He had taught her the meaning of grief, and what it meant to care for someone.

Those things seemed to be inexplicably linked in the human heart; one led to another, specially where family bonds were concerned.

Rei looked at the girl lying on the bed. Above the bandages that shielded her eyes there was head of brunette hair flowing out over the pillow. She turned to Miko.

"You are not related," Rei said softly.

The woman lifted her head. "What?"

"You are not related," Rei repeated. "How can she be your sister?"

Wiping her sleeve across her face, the woman seemed to gather some of her composure. "There's more to it than that," she murmured. "Family bonds … they don't have to be by blood. You can care for someone just as much as if they were family even if they aren't. She's my sister because I care for her like a sister. That's all that really matters."

Rei nodded. Finally, she thought she understood. "Is that why you cry?" she asked.

"You cry because it hurts."

"But you hurt because of this bond. The closer to are to someone the more it hurts. The Third Child is the same way. Would it not be better not to have bonds to be spared from hurt?"

"If you can live your entire life without caring for anyone, then I feel sorry for you." Drained, the woman laid down on her bunk, tucking her hands under her head. "Your eyes look weird in the dark, did you know that?"

"No."

The woman sighed. "Well, they do. Not glowing but I can tell they are red. I don't think I like that color anymore."

Rei had never liked it either. But she had no preference in this matter, so it could be said she disliked all of them. Back when Unit-00 had been repainted, her predecessor had chosen blue. It must have held some meaning to her, a connection.

Much the same way that Rei had felt a connection to Shinji Ikari from the moment she met him, and in the way she had begun to feel towards Keiko Nagara. Whatever those feelings were. "May I stay with her?"

"That's very kind of you. More kindness than I would expect from people in this place."

Rei took a chair and sat by Keiko's bedside, looking down on her. Behind her, the woman, who she presumed was the girl's guardian, went back to sleep.

* * *

As the car emerged from the tunnel and into bright sunlight, Asuka held up her hand to shield her eyes from it. After spending almost an entire week underground, she was finally out of quarantine. Central Dogma was well illuminated, but it was no substitute for the sun. Sitting on the driver's seat next to her, Misato removed her sunglasses and handed them over. "Here."

Asuka did not take them. Instead, she turned her head away and stared blankly out of her window at the passing scenery, resting an elbow on the window frame. Despite Misato's best efforts, she had yet to say a word.

On other people, like Shinji or Rei, this would not have seemed so strange, but in Asuka it was troubling. Misato would have thought she'd be happy to be out of quarantine, at the very least. So far she seemed as dour as she had seen her at any time during the previous week.

Her hair was still loose—Misato had brought her neural connectors along with some clothes, but when Asuka changed she omitted the distinctive accessories. As they left Misato caught a glint of red in a trash can. Now clad in a blouse and a skirt, her slender body strapped down by the seat belt, the redhead would have appeared as just another surly teenager to any stranger looking in on them. A strange yet reassuring element of normalcy.

But appearances could be deceiving. Eva pilots and normalcy did not mix. They could pretend, and try to act like their lives were normal—going to school, for instance, and living as civilians. So far they had always failed.

In this case the doctor was right, Misato thought. Asuka may have been released but she was far from healthy.

Returning the sunglasses over her eyes, Misato tightened her grip on steering wheel. It was alright if Asuka didn't want to talk. She had expected that. The redhead had spent so long alone with her thoughts, doubtlessly blaming herself as other people did, that it was probably the worse thing they could have done. She wasn't contaminated. Ritsuko had insisted they needed to be sure. That was not really a credible excuse; the Angel had not come into contact with her except … when she was tearing it apart.

And Keiko along with it.

Misato shook her head. The road curved to the left, she followed it. She had waited long enough. "Asuka, you know I would never do anything if I didn't think it was in your own interest, right?"

"Don't talk to me," the redhead said sourly.

"You haven't said anything for a week," Misato carried on, undeterred. "I know you must think no one can understand how you feel, but you have people around you who aren't so quick to judge. Frankly, you should have figured that out by now."

"Where have those people been the last week?"

"We couldn't break the quarantine, you know that." It was true. Misato still felt guilty, though. "But we've been worried about you. It's not like we wanted to leave you there. Shinji's been dying to see you. And I have been seeing you every day."

"Do you want me to thank you?" Asuka snorted.

"No," Misato said, trying not to sound miffed. "I just want you to be aware of that. Shinji and I are here for you. For anything you need. Even if it's just to talk. Some times that's all you need to feel better."

"I'll never feel better," Asuka spat.

It pained Misato to hear her say that, even more so because she looked like she believed it. "It's only been a week. It's still too soon for you. And you've been alone so I would expect you to feel that way. Things will be different now. I promise you."

Asuka chewed on her lip. Misato wished she could keep talking, because that might mean she would be willing to accept her help. And she wanted to help her, more than anything. But she also realized she could not force Asuka if she would really rather refuse.

The problem was Misato knew Asuka wouldn't want her help, for the wrong reasons. Her pride being one. Misconceptions about guilt and blame being others. Asuka was not a sharing person, never was and probably never would be, so Misato was not surprised she kept quiet the rest of the trip. Her silence already spoke more loudly than words could.

It's too soon for her, Misato reminded herself, giving the redhead a quick glance. Well, just wait until you get home.

Ten minutes later they entered the building's parking lot. Misato pulled into her designated space, a habit she had kept even though there was hardly anyone living here, engaged the parking break and undid the door lock from her side. Before she could shut off the engine Asuka was climbing out. She waited for her to slam the door behind her, then retrieved her cell phone.

She quickly picked a number out of the electronic phone book and dialed. "Yeah, we're here," she said. "Coming up now."

Misato hung up, climbed out, locked the doors, and rushed to Asuka's side. They rode the elevator together in uncomfortable silence. Asuka had her arms crossed over her chest, a closed gesture indicating Misato would be disappointed if she thought she could talk to her here. When the elevator opened, Asuka took the lead.

They walked along the veranda, and when they reached their apartment Asuka patted herself down, looking for a key she didn't have.

But she didn't need one.

The door slid open in front of her as if automatically and, standing smiling on the other side, was Hikari Horaki.

Asuka flinched, giving a little yelp as her best friend put her arms around her in a hug. "Welcome home."

If only briefly, the look of stunned surprise wiped the one of misery, seemingly the only other emotion Misato had seen reflected on the redhead's pretty face for a solid week, right away.

* * *

Shinji had spent a week in hell. For the first couple of days he locked himself in his room and despite Misato's best efforts refused to leave his bed. It was a feeling that had grown all too familiar with, that awful sense of emptiness that came with loss, the heavy weight of grief pushing him down. No matter how many times she reassured him that Asuka would be fine and the quarantine was just a precaution.

Hearing that she was fine was not enough, he wanted to see her and be able to talk to her. To just have her there.

In this mindset, he could not bring himself to ask any more about Keiko. Misato had told him she was alive, but that was all. He wouldn't ask. It was too much that something like this happened again, too heartbreaking. Again. He didn't want to know. At that point the only thing that had kept him from thinking of running away was Misato telling him that Asuka would be coming back in one week.

He had to deal with the pain if he was to be there for her. As hard as this might be on him, it was worse on Asuka. He was the only one who could come close to understand what she was going through.

Now, watching Hikari lead a stunned Asuka into the kitchen by the hand as if she were a little girl, Shinji felt his heart, so very heavy since the battle, grow lighter.

Nothing could take away from that pretty face he had wanted to see so badly. The blue orbs of her eyes were dulled but not less shocking; her hair, having not being washed for a week, lacked its usual shine but was still vivid. Tired and troubled, she was home regardless.

Standing by the stove, clad in his apron, Shinji was just glad and it showed. "Hi, Asuka."

Asuka regarded him curiously. "Idiot, after a week I expected something sappy out of you."

Misato entered the entered the kitchen, a slightly forced smile on her face.

Kensuke, who had essentially been drafted by the Major halfway through the week to stay with Shinji, sat at the table. The Third Child knew she had meant well, not wanting him to be alone as he had through tough times before. Unfortunately, _he _wanted to be alone. Soon, having his friend for company devolved into awkward conversations and even more awkward silences and nothing came of it.

It certainly didn't make Shinji feel better; if anything, it made him crave being left alone. Kensuke picked up on this as well. He seemed content to let Shinji brood, either because he could not comfort him or was reluctant to do so. After the first day, they spent most of the time separately. It put undue strain on their friendship, but they both understood this was an extraordinary situation.

That debacle, like Misato's more recent idea to have Hikari over and cook something special for Asuka was their guardian's way of fixing things. Shinji hoped this one would turn out better. And why not? Asuka liked Hikari and she liked his food. It was, to be honest, a perfect idea.

But rather than display enthusiasm at being home and surrounded by a room full of people who cared about her, Asuka's surprise quickly seemed to melt away. Her expression turned surly, and almost embarrassed. She looked at Hikari as if she didn't know what to make of her, then, skipping Kensuke completely, at Shinji. "What are you doing?"

He wanted to say so many things at once that they all bunched together in his throat. "Um... well, we thought—I mean, Misato and I—"

"We thought you'd like to have something special on your first night back," Misato finished for him, coming between them. "We didn't really know what you liked to eat in Germany so Shinji here pulled a traditional recipe off the web."

Asuka's brow wrinkled as she frowned. "You what?"

"What?" Misato frowned. "You don't like bratwurst? I even bought one of those grills."

"No, I … I like it just fine, but it's kinda not really … traditional?" Openly confused, Asuka looked over at Hikari again, a gesture that indicated she wanted an explanation that made sense to her and the off-duty Class Rep. was the only one who could provide it.

Hikari shrugged, smiling. "Don't look at me, they came up with the idea. I just said I'd be here because I wanted to see you."

"Come on, Asuka," Misato said, leaning against the table. "Is it really that hard to believe we'd want to do something for you?"

For a moment Shinji thought she would give the answer none of them wanted to hear, but it was Asuka's body answered the question for her. Her shoulders sagged visibly, like she was too tired to hold them up, and her posture stiffened, down to her toes clutching at the floor. Her head lowered, a curtail of hair falling across her eyes.

It was more than a simple _yes_. And it was so obvious that even someone as socially clueless as Shinji realized it.

The Third Child stepped up. Misato, guessing his intention, placed herself in front of him. "Asuka, why don't you go take a shower?" she said quickly. "I'm sure it will make you feel better."

Asuka did not argue, a sign of how she was feeling. She went to her room for a set of clean clothes, then returned to the kitchen as Shinji and Kensuke worked on setting up the small oval-shaped grill on the counter. But as Asuka walked around the table she seemed to notice the bespectacled boy for the first time.

"Isn't he going to leave?" She glared at Misato, who was now sitting at the table with Hikari.

"I don't see why," Misato said casually. "He's Shinji's friend."

"But ..." Asuka started, her voice whinny, but then stopped as her gaze drifting to Shinji. She seemed to decide it was not worth the energy or effort it would take to complain. "Never mind."

Gone in a huff, she slammed the bathroom door closed behind her.

"Well, at least she seems to be getting back to normal," Kensuke said sarcastically, letting Shinji deal with the grill on his own. It worked better that way. Shinji did not even need the instructions. Soon he had placed the large, reddish beef and pork sausages on the device and started to cook.

That done, he began peeling some potatoes, cutting them into slices, setting them on a frying pan on the stove. Western cuisine, it turned out, was not all that different. Not so far, anyway. All in all things were going pretty well.

Shinji heard the shower starting to run. The noise meant he would have to limit himself to cooking with oil or Asuka would be mad since it would completely screw up the temperature. It was not a problem; he had anticipated this and had all he needed already in a pot.

"Um, Major Katsuragi?" Hikari said hesitantly from behind him. "I know we are supposed to be focused on Asuka and everything, but I was just wondered if you'd heard anything about Keiko."

Shinji felt his stomach lurch. Desperate not to listen, he busied himself with the cooking. Next came the onions, which he also had to fry. And he needed to keep an eye on the sausages or they would burn. The pleasant smell of cooking slowly filled the kitchen.

"She was moved to the ICU, but I don't know," Misato said. "It doesn't look good."

Shinji was now working on the onions, peeling off the skin with a knife. This smell he didn't like, never had; it made his eyes water no matter what he did.

"Doesn't anybody know what really happened?"

Shinji wished very much for Hikari to be quiet. He wiped a forearm across his eyes, stifling a sob. Those damn onions.

"We think she … we think something may have gone wrong with Unit-02. And, well, Asuka, she couldn't do anything about it."

"I didn't know Asuka was involved," Kensuke said interestedly from beside Shinji. "I mean I knew she was out there, but I didn't know she had anything to do with Keiko getting injured." He turned to his brown-haired friend, who now wanted them all to shut up. "Shinji, you should have said something."

Shinji shifted slightly, keeping his back to them. He felt cornered.

"Of course something went wrong," Hikari said decisively. "Asuka would never do something like that. She may have not have liked Keiko as a friend, but she would never hurt her."

"I'm not saying she did!" Kensuke said, turning to her. "I just didn't know because Shinji didn't tell me."

"Idiot, he doesn't have to tell you if he doesn't want to." Hikari was growing annoyed. "After what happened to Toji, do you really think Shinji would want to talk about something like this? If you really wanted to know you should have asked the Major. Like I did."

"Yeah, well, I shouldn't really have to. I was her friend too!"

Was...

"Stop," Shinji said weakly, setting down the chopping knife and again drawing his arm over his eyes as he turned to face them, hoping they wouldn't notice it was more than the effect of the onions. "It's not polite to talk about someone behind their back."

But he knew, as did the rest of them, that it was not politeness that made them stop. They looked at each other in sudden gloomy silence, broken only by the drumming of the shower and the sound of the frying pan, each with their own doubts and insecurities. Finally, they understood that this was not a celebration. That there was nothing to celebrate. Asuka was home, and that was good thing. But one of their own, someone else they knew, would likely never get to go home again.

Even Misato, whose idea this had been, was silent. Shinji could tell from the look on her face that she had realized it was a mistake.

No one noticed when the noise of the shower stopped. A minute later Asuka walked out of the bathroom.

Everything about her was the same, but somehow it all seemed to have changed. She stood there at the edge of this dark circle, looking around cautiously at them as if wondering whether this was a place she wanted to be in, or with these people. Despite not meaning to, they looked at her like a stranger.

Her skin was moist and her hair wet, sticking to her. She had thrown on an oversized mustard T-shirt that did wonders to conceal her figure and made it all the way down to her upper thighs. Just low enough, in fact, that it would have been possible for her to wear it with nothing underneath and still keep herself descent. She also wore a pair of dark shorts, longer than her usual fare but still revealing.

Such clothes, accented by her loose mane, made her seem haggard and put-upon. Shinji realized just how much the previous week and the events that led to it had really taken out of her.

And it occurred to Shinji that, of those gathered here, only Asuka and him knew that she had promised to protect Keiko, that she had stopped seeing her as being worthy of her contempt and actually started to welcome her into their midst. Everyone could doubt her sincerity, even Misato. But the truth was Asuka had committed herself to protect someone else, an act of selflessness regardless of the result.

Asuka had more reason to grieve than the rest of them, because what happened to Keiko Nagara was her utter failure—as a pilot, a friend, and as a human being.

With only the quiet padding of her damp bare feet on the floor, Asuka walked over to the table. She pulled out a chair and plopped tiredly into it. Shinji thought about telling her that dinner would be a few more minutes, but he had a sense that she didn't care. This was reinforced a second later as she leaned forward, put up her elbows and stuck her head in her hands.

Hikari and Misato watched. Neither said anything.

Shinji was used to eating in silence so it didn't bother him too much once they all finally sat down at the table. By then the mood was downright dour. Bringing up Keiko's fate seemed to have killed whatever enjoyment any of them were going to have out of the evening. He was grateful that nobody decided to start talking, as that was sure to create more unpleasantness.

The food was good, though different, and a little too spicy for his taste. Using a fork was just weird.

Shinji was halfway through the bratwurst when he looked up and noticed that Asuka was not eating. In fact, she had hardly touched her plate. "Asuka," he spoke, "is everything alright? Has it gone cold already?"

Asuka didn't reply. She was tracing small patterns with her own fork on the plate. Shinji gazed at her for a few minutes, wondering what was wrong.

But when it became obvious that Asuka was not going to reply, Misato asked, "Asuka, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," was the reply. Shinji couldn't see her eyes, hidden behind a curtain of red bangs, but the way her voice sounded made him feel awkward.

"What's the matter, Asuka?" Hikari sounded worried. "Is there something wrong with the food?"

Clearly, Asuka wasn't fine. Shinji knew from hard experience he would never get a straight answer out of her if she was not prepared to give one, so he changed the subject of the question hoping that a reply would give him a clue as to what was going on. "It's got to better than the stuff you've been eating."

"The food is fine," Asuka replied.

"If it's gone cold, I can warm up it for you."

Asuka tensed visibly, and set her fork down on the table. "I'm not hungry," she said. "I can eat later."

"You need to eat, Asuka," Misato said. "He's right. The stuff they give you in quarantine is godawful, so why don't you enjoy it?"

Hikari reached an open hand towards her. "Asuka, you've been through something very hard," she said, "and it's okay if you feel a little uncomfortable. But you have to eat."

Asuka jerked her hand away. "Stop it!" She raised her head. Her eyes were wide an furious as he looked around her. "Just stop it, alright. You aren't fooling anyone!"

The Class Rep. drew back, confusion clear on her face. Misato leaned forward. "Asuka, what's wrong?"

"Everything's wrong!" Asuka glared at her, teeth bared. "I know what you are doing. But just because you all want to pretend like nothing happened doesn't mean it didn't. It doesn't mean I didn't try to … to ..."

Her voice was dripping with guilt. Shinji had expected something like this would happen sooner or later. Asuka did blame herself, like he had blamed himself for Toji. But even though he could relate to her uniquely among the people on around the table, he just didn't know what to say. This had been such a difficult subject before, and even then it was Asuka who brought it up. Now he felt helpless.

"Asuka," Hikari said soothingly, "no one here believes for a second that you would want to hurt--"

"I did!" Asuka bellowed, slamming her hands on the table and jumping to her feet, sending the chair clattering to the floor behind her. "I did want to hurt her! It was all I could think of!"

They stared.

Asuka hung her head and slumped over the table, her eyes no longer visible behind the curtain of golden-red bangs, clawing at the surface so furiously her fingernails dug into the wood.

"In my head … I wanted to hurt her," she said hoarsely, her muscled tensed so tight she was actually shaking. "I don't know why. I just wanted to hurt her. It was just in my head. And then I opened my eyes and ... there was blood everywhere."

"Oh, Asuka." Misato rose out of her chair, holding an arm open. But as she went to put it around Asuka, the redhead shook her off and pushed her away.

"Leave me alone!" Asuka turned and ran, trailing red hair behind her, her feet thudding loudly.

Hikari held a hand to her mouth, horror plain on her face; Kensuke looked like he would rather be anywhere else. Shinji was shocked, yet at the same time overwhelmed by both grief and pity. Misato stooped down to pick up the toppled chair, then sat on it.

When she spoke, Hikari's voice was shaky with uncertainty. "You don't really think that she ..."

"Of course not," Misato said quickly. She slumped back, her gaze moving between Hikari and Kensuke. "It's survivor's guilt. We always blame ourselves, and that's hard enough without other people second-guessing us."

As Asuka's best friend, Hikari instantly understood the implications of what Misato was saying—Asuka already blames herself, don't you do the same. Kensuke remained sitting perfectly still and quiet.

"I'm sorry I got you guys involved in this. It really did seem like a good idea at the time." Then Misato turned to Shinji. "I hate to put this kind of burden on you, Shinji, but you are the only one who's ever been through something like this. She's going to need you."

Shinji nodded vaguely. It was all he could do to tell her he already knew. But, as most other things in his relationship with Asuka, it was easier said than done.

Slowly, Misato got up, looking at Asuka's unfinished meal. "There's no point in carrying on now, is there?"

* * *

In the darkness a girl screamed.

Asuka's eyes shot open and, though the images of her nightmare quickly disappeared, sprang from her bed as if to escape something from her subconscious reaching out to grab her. She was on her feet for only a second before her knees buckled and her legs surrendered her to gravity.

She landed with a thump and a whimper. She lay on the floor for a few moments, too dazed and confused to feel any pain, struggling to keep her heart from bursting out of her chest. For a second that lasted an eternity, she felt utterly helpless.

Slowly, her senses trickled back from the nightmare and she became aware of her surroundings. The fog in her mind lifted and suddenly she was fully awake.

With a stabilizing gulp of air, and grunting from the effort, Asuka picked herself up, rising to her knees on the carpet. She looked around the room, looking for signs of the nightmare among the darkened shapes of furniture and all the other stuff her own, and realized that she was safe.

Asuka shook her head as the images threatened to come back. She didn't want to see them, she never did. They burst out from their prison in the back of her mind with such force that she felt her entire body shivering. They were vivid and dark and horrifying. Asuka wanted to escape them, but they were suddenly everywhere she looked. She sank into the sea of emotions and fears that plagued her, as her mind slowly unraveled.

"No," she whimpered, closing her eyes, her body now a ball on the floor. "No, stop…please."

The first image was that of herself. She was on her knees, like a moment ago, but all that she could see was her naked back. She was holding on to something that was half hidden by the darkness and the couldn't tell what it was. The image changed, and she was suddenly facing herself.

Asuka felt another tremor rock her as the sickly white face stared back at her.

"Please, look," the imaginary Asuka pleaded. "Please look, Mama."

The next image sent Asuka's brain reeling—she saw herself again, but this time the thing she was holding was clear. It was human shaped and distinct. A brunette girl, naked and completely bathed in blood.

Asuka forced her eyes open, using every ounce of her strength to do so, in an attempt to escape the images. The tears ran unrestrained now. "Leave me alone!"

She got to her feet and this time managed to support herself long enough to muster the balance required to walk.

The dark apartment proved easy enough to navigate, but Asuka stumbled clumsily with every step she took as her legs tried to abandon her once again. She didn't even know where she was going, but she did know that she had to get away from the images. She had to find a place where they couldn't get to her. She had to escape.

Asuka came to halt in front of Shinji's door, and in her desperation tried to decide what to do. Shinji had taken her in once. She didn't want him to think she was nothing more than a frightened child. She didn't want him to think she was just a needy little thing desperate for someone to cling onto.

It occurred to her right there that that was exactly what she was. She wanted him so badly that she thought for a moment she was still trapped in a dream, one that did not end in bloodshed. How could she, the Second Child, be reduced to this?

It was uncanny. Impossible. And yet Asuka knew it was true. She wanted to be with him so much that every second he was out of her sight her heart ached and filled her with fear. What if he left her? What if he didn't want her? What if she … if she ...

Asuka couldn't bear the answers. She was afraid to know, to even think about it. She found herself crying again, the tears building up at the corners of her eyes running down her cheeks.

Another image flashed in front of her with sudden intensity. It was more vivid and real than any picture she had ever seen, and much more powerful.

Again she saw herself holding a figure. This time, however, it was not a brunette girl. This time it was a brown-haired boy whom she immediately recognized. The boy that she desperately wanted to be with. In horror, Asuka cupped her mouth with her hands and froze. Suddenly, she realized what the night mare was trying to tell her.

"S-Shinji," a voice Asuka could barely identify as her own, cried.

The darkness surrounded her, clinging to every part of her body, threatening to rip her apart physically as it had already done with her heart.

Even after a week of being alone with her thoughts, Asuka did not understand what had driven to want to hurt Keiko. It seemed as if something had just snapped in her head, gone wrong somehow and convinced that she wanted to kill her. It whispered in her mind in such honeyed tones that it was impossible to resist. It almost seemed like a good idea. The rational solution to a physics problem.

Then, when her hands had turned into claws and there was blood everywhere, it was as if whatever vicious impulse that had possessed her had vanished and left her to deal with the consequences of her actions alone. She had felt utterly abandoned. In isolation, left alone, the guilt and seething resentment—towards others and herself—had consumed her. She had been alone ever since. Day and night. And she hated it.

Today was even worse, when the people she thought cared about her looked at her like she didn't belong. But she had failed to realize it; she was too afraid of loneliness to think clearly. Now she saw it.

Isolation was her due; being abandoned. Nobody understood what happened and so she had to be kept apart. It was best for everyone, and for the sake of one person in particular.

Because Asuka now knew that, just as badly as she had hurt Keiko, she would inevitably hurt Shinji as well. No matter what she did. No matter what she thought. No matter how deeply she felt about him.

She was going to hurt him.

It was his blood-drenched body in her lap that she had seen in the nightmare. His blood. His life slowly seeping away through her fingers. Because of her.

And when she did hurt him, just as with Keiko, she knew she would want to. She … she would want to.

Shaking her head, Asuka felt something hollow in her body. She left like a doll—a plastic shell and nothing inside. Her breathing grew labored and quick, her chest closing up until eventually she couldn't breathe at all. She felt cold, but the room around her was warm. Her heart beat against the inside of her ribs mercilessly.

And in the darkness … there was just a thin paper door between her and Shinji. If she really wanted to hurt him all she would have to do was …

Oh, God …

Asuka turned. She emerged from the hallway and crossed the living room without taking a breath. She fumbled with the latch on the sliding door to the balcony, seemingly unable to get her fingers to work right in her panic. Finally, it opened.

The air outside was cool, but it didn't soothe her. The concrete floor was rough and cold under her bare feet. She was covered in sweat from head to toes. Taking huge gulps of air, she tried to calm herself down. She clutched her chest through her nightshirt, feeling her young breasts heaving. Her heartbeat sounded like a drum in her own ears.

Smart girl that she was, Asuka knew she was having a panic attack. And although this knowledge infuriated her it was not enough to help her overcome it.

How the hell did she fall so low? She wasn't supposed to let this sort of thing happen to her. She was supposed to be strong, unafraid, stouthearted in every way she could be. She was a warrior, an elite, the best. How was it possible?

A warrior? No. Keiko Nagara proved she was a killer. That human suffering meant nothing to her. She would kill again. And it would be someone she cared for. She had seen it, just as she had seen the blood in her nightmare before she saw it on her hands.

Asuka knew it shouldn't make sense, but in the state of mind she found herself in it somehow did. All the sense in the world. It would happen. She was certain. There was nothing she could do about it.

But there was. There was a way, and it was right in front of her eyes.

The redhead looked at the balcony railing, at the blackened landscape beyond. There were almost no lights visible. This once thriving city was now little more than an empty graveyard. A hand still tightly grasping her shirt, Asuka moved forward.

When Shinji had started to despair about killing Kaworu, whom Asuka never even met, she had been so angry with his attitude that she told him if he wanted to die he just jump off the balcony. Funny how things like that could find their way back to you, she thought bitterly. Never in a million years would it occur to her that she would be the one ...

Asuka leaned her head over the void, her loose hair flowing in the breeze. There was no way to just fall—she would simply land on the balcony below, injured but still alive. No, she would have to jump.

And then what?

If the purpose was to spare Shinji from hurt, how could this possibly help? What had her mother's death done for her if not scar her forever? That single traumatic event had ruined her childhood and rendered her completely unable to live a normal life. The wounds left by death did not simply heal over time; they never healed. Asuka knew that first hand. She would cause Shinji more pain and hurt in death than she possibly could in life. As her own mother had.

She could not do that do him. She could not hurt him like she knew it would. But at least her pain would stop, right?

Right?

Who cared. She was always in pain. It was a reality she needed to accept. Her pain didn't matter anymore. She would always be in pain.

Asuka looked down again, thinking that she should just do it, for her mother, for Shinji, even for Keiko and all the other people she would hurt. Surely, it would be for the best. And then, from somewhere in the back of her mind, came Shinji's voice.

"But … I need you."

She whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut, tears running down her already stained cheeks. God, she could almost feel him hugging her again. Her head dropped as it had dropped that day onto his shoulder.

Asuka's mind was made up for her by her body. Her knees buckled, her sending her tumbling onto the balcony floor and safety even as she clutched the top of the railing for support. She did not have the strength to pull herself up again. "I can't do anything ..."

The night did not answer. She slumped against the railing, letting go of it and cradling her head in her arms, feeling utterly useless. She couldn't even die, that would just hurt him more. Then what else was there? If she couldn't take herself away from Shinji, the only other choice was for him to want to ...

Asuka ground her teeth in anguish.

She had to think of him, of what was best for him, and she did. His face—that stupid, handsome, comforting face she loved—came to her with surprising clarity. For once, she had to put him ahead of her, as he seemed to have done for her so many times already. She had to go back. To her room and the waking nightmare that was her life.

* * *

It was not until a few minutes after midday that Shinji finally decided to check on his roommate. Asuka had not come out of her room all morning, not even when he called for breakfast, and he was beginning to get worried. She was not the kind of person to sleep late into the day, and after yesterday ...

That was, of course, unless she wanted to be left alone, which he thought she plainly did. He'd known the redhead to spend entire days in her room when she was feeling depressed or something else was bothering her. She was very much like him that way, and perhaps he should respect that. It had certainly upset him when Misato didn't and insisted on bridging the gap, but now that he was on the other side of that thin line he felt compelled to check on Asuka.

The irony was not lost him. Shinji almost resented his guardian for trying to get him to open up. One such time, after Rei died, she had even put her hand over his and to this day he was not sure if she was trying to give him comfort by offering her body. She was like his mother, he couldn't have possibly accepted her like that.

Standing outside Asuka's bedroom door, face to face with a sign that read "Do not enter without permission or I will kill you" in English, Shinji clenched his hands, as he always did when courage was needed, and knocked.

"Asuka, are you still asleep?"

It couldn't be that surprising, could it? It was the first time in a week she slept in her own room, in her own bed. It was also the first time she had some privacy. She would not want him bothering her.

Shinji sighed. He felt like an intruder. Had Asuka yelled at him, or said anything at all, he would have left it at that. But her silence was practically a cry for him to knock again. "Asuka?"

Again there was no reply. He tried the door and was surprised that it was not locked. In fact, it was not properly set on its frame, as if someone had slammed it and hard.

"Asuka, I'm coming inside." Fearing he was about to get something thrown at him, Shinji opened the door slowly and stepped into the room sideways, trying to keep a slim profile. As a precaution, she kept his eyes on the floor. "I'm not looking, okay? But if you aren't dressed just tell me to leave and I'll ..."

The curtains were drawn shut. The light was diffused but not scarce.

"Leave."

Her voice was hoarse and wrong in so many ways it almost begged Shinji to look up. It wasn't the voice of someone being intruded upon while undressed, or even that of someone who was only now, halfway through the day, getting out of bed. There was movement on the corner of his vision, not directly in front of him where the bed was and he expected Asuka to be.

Shinji raised his gaze.

A gasp escaped his lips as he recognized the sight of Asuka curled up in a corner. She had her knees drawn up to her chest with her head buried between them. He could not see her face, only her mane of golden-red hair, disheveled. She was only wearing her night clothes, a loose oversized shirt and panties.

"Asuka?" With great care, Shinji stepped closer to her, his feet almost silent on the carpet. "Asuka? What's wrong?"

"Leave me alone," the voice that replied was weak, unrecognizable. It was quickly followed by a series of choked whimpers that let Shinji know she trying not to cry. "Please, just go away. It's better that way."

Shinji ignored her plea, knowing that he couldn't will himself to do such a thing when she was obviously in so much pain. It was just like that day when he found her on the balcony. Whatever was happening to her was just as heart wrenching. How could he abandon her? After everything they'd been through, how could she think that he would?

"Better?" He knelt next to her, and slowly, hesitantly, grasped her shoulders. "I don't understand, Asuka."

"Goddammit, Third Child!" In a blur of furious motion, Asuka lunged forward and shoved him away, in the process letting Shinji see her tear-streaked cheeks and angry, bloodshot eyes. "Why can't you ever do what I tell you?" she yelled. "Why do you have to insist? You are like some damned puppy that keeps coming back after you kick it!"

Now sitting on the carpet, Shinji stared at her in silence. The words, no matter how harsh, failed to register. All he could do was stare.

Even in her anger, a mask of complete hopelessness remained etched on Asuka's features, tugging them downwards, making her look a lot older than she really was. "Just go, Shinji," she sobbed. "Go before I end up hurting you like I hurt everyone else."

She lowered her head again and her face vanished behind her knees.

"Is this because of Keiko?" Shinji said. Even the name now brought with it a pang of sadness. "Asuka, it's okay, I don't blame you."

"You are such an idiot," she whispered sourly. Her posture tightened, knees coming up higher, head going lower, feet turning inwards so one was on top of the other. "You don't understand. It's not about her. It's … me. I'm the one … it's about me. Victims aren't just victims. Someone makes them that way. I'm that someone."

Shinji could say almost the exact same thing about himself. He made victims out of Toji and Kaworu, and of Rei and Asuka, and in the case of the last two without even realizing he was doing it.

Asuka was still talking. "I hurt people. It's what I do. And it's not even that surprising. Even when I wished things were different, I could never bring myself to say or do anything nice for you. I thought the only way to deal with you was to hurt you. That night in the kitchen, when I said I hated you … I wanted to hurt you."

He remembered—the night that had almost ruined their relationship, when he said he hated her too and wished she would die. He started to get up. "Asuka—"

"Don't say it isn't true!" She kicked him, her foot hitting the outside of his right leg above the ankle and sending it into his left.

Shinji made a noise that was at least as much of pain as it was of surprise as he fell. He hit the ground hard, landing awkwardly on his butt, and immediately held his right leg where she had kicked him. His eyes tearing up, grimacing in pain, he glared at her with a hint of resentment.

Had he been putting any more weight on that ankle at that very moment, Shinji had no doubt it would have likely snapped. Almost as painful as the kick itself was the awful realization that causing that kind of damage had been Asuka's intention.

"See?" Asuka met his eyes furiously. "It doesn't matter what either of us feels. I am always going to hurt you."

"W-why?" Shinji managed in a pained whisper.

"Because it's who I am!" Asuka yelled. She kicked him again, and this time caught his hand, wrapped as it was around his leg. There was a sickening sound, like a stick breaking.

Pain like he hadn't felt in a long time.

Shinji screamed, rolling onto his side, clutching his injured hand, his leg forgotten.

"I can do worse!" Asuka shouted. But it was not a threat—it was the desperate cry of someone surrendering to despair. Her voice was breaking again, and it was more than matched by the look on her face. Tears flowed anew, flushing down already marred and reddened cheeks. "If you don't leave, Keiko Nagara is going to seem like the lucky one!"

Only because she might not make it, Shinji thought bitterly despite that pain. She wouldn't have to live knowing she had abandoned someone dear to her, as Asuka was to Shinji. "N-no..."

"You are such a fucking idiot!" Asuka lifted her foot to kick him again. All he could focus on was her pink sole hovering above his head. "You want me to hurt you, don't you! You like to be in pain! That's why you stuck around me even though all I ever did was hurt you!"

"Stop," he whimpered, closing his eyes and brazing himself. A kick to the head would knock him out, at the very least. If that was what she wanted …

The blow he expected never came; Shinji reopened his eyes as Asuka put her foot back down on the carpet.

"Please, leave," Asuka practically begged. Her voice was sickly, that tone she usually adopted when she wanted to sound angry while at the same time trying not to cry; a tone Shinji had heard much too often in recent months. "Please, leave. Just leave. I don't want to hurt you anymore."

Shinji forced his pain aside. "I'm … not going to leave."

"Then I'm just going to keep kicking you."

"I am not going to leave!" His yell surprised him as much as it seemed to surprise Asuka. His eyes became narrow and determined as hers grew wide and uncertain. He pulled himself onto his knees, cradling the hand Asuka had kicked, which was already starting to swell. "I don't care how much you hurt me. Break every bone in my body if it makes you happy, but I am not going to leave you!"

"But..."

"Why can't you understand?" he was still yelling. "I want to be there when you need me!"

"I don't need you!" Asuka yelled back, crawling onto her hands and knees and bringing her face threateningly close to his. "I don't want to need you!"

"But _I _need you!" Shinji blurted out, his pale-blue eyes locked in her bright blue ones. "And I want to be with you forever!"

"You … what?" Asuka blinked and for a stunned moment looked at him as though he had lost his mind, then, her eyes bristling with tears, she moved back. Even though a long, awkward silence followed, his last statement seemed to have a strange hardening effect on her. She did not cry. The tears remained unshed, clouding her eyes but doing nothing more. And she seemed braver somehow. "Why?"

Shinji thought about it, searching his heart for an explanation. He should not have bothered. The answer came to him in words that Asuka herself had once used. "You told me that if I couldn't live for myself," he said slowly, "then … I should live for those around me."

Asuka's face softened in comprehension.

"I … I can't live for myself, Asuka," Shinji said. "So I'll live for someone else instead. I'll live for you."

Her mouth moved but no words came. The moment stretched out and they stared at each other in silence.

Then Asuka's lips curled up, an almost-smile. It was the most beautiful expression Shinji had seen on her face since before she took Keiko into combat. If his experience with Toji was any indication, Asuka would likely never be the same again. She would have to accept the change, as he struggled to even to this day. It was the essence of living on, but it didn't mean she had to endure it alone.

Since he could remember, Shinji had tried to accept who he was and to get Asuka to do the same—to accept him. Even in the midst of this situation, he understood that his words to her were not an admission that he could not live _with_ himself, or that there could never be acceptance. While he had come a long way down that road, it was by no means an easy thing; he had to work at it and even then there was no guarantee that it would ever happen.

But accepting himself was not a reason to live, it was a way. Being with Asuka was, very much, a reason.

As for hurting him … it didn't really matter all that much to him. He had been hurt so much in his life already. And maybe she was right, maybe he did like it. He was that puppy, coming back after being kicked. So desperate was he for her affection that he would endure whatever abuse she wanted to heap on him.

Pathetic as it might be, Asuka simply could not hurt him bad enough to make him want to leave her. Hopefully she would know that.

Asuka's voice finally broke into his thoughts. "You know, that sounds a lot like a declaration."

"I ..." A crimson blush rose to Shinji's face. "I … I … um, well, I hadn't thought of it like that."

Asuka looked miffed. "Are you stupid?" She laid back onto the carpet, stretching her long, shapely legs out in front of her and staring at the ceiling.

Shinji tried not to notice that her legs were completely bare, that she was still only wearing panties and that these left very little to the imagination. He averted his eyes, and as he did he realized just how much his hand hurt. Once he focused on it, the pain intensified, blocking out even the suggestion that he had basically just declared himself to Asuka.

He tried moving his middle finger. "Ouch!"

Asuka turned her head to him. "What?"

"I think you broke a finger," Shinji said, holding up his hand. There was a bump where there shouldn't have been. "Looks weird and it hurts."

She sat and took his hand, being surprisingly gentle. Her hands felt soft and warm as they held his, inspecting it. "It's not broken, just dislocated. You can push it back in place and then you'll need something to keep it from moving. But it's going to hurt like hell."

Shinji met her eyes and saw little sympathy, probably because most of the other injuries they had suffered were so much more serious by comparison. And, well, he never had a large threshold for pain anyway. "You do it."

"You should have left when you had the chance." She took a firm hold of his middle finger, making him flinch. With her other hand she held his wrist. "On three, okay?"

Shinji nodded, dreading it already.

"One. Two."

SNAP!

Shinji screamed and tried to yank his hand away. Asuka let him go. Overcome by pain, he keeled over on his side. And he must have passed out for a second because the next thing he noticed was that he was lying on the carpet and the side of his face was rubbing on the thick fibers, and Asuka was leaning over him on her hands and knees, a mournful expression on her face.

"Oww," Shinji complained woefully. Despite the pain, he could not tear his eyes from the girl a few inches above him. "What happened to the three?"

"It always hurts more on three," Asuka said, but her voice had no humor in it. Instead, her crystal blue eyes stared down at him seriously. There was also a lot of red, reaching out from the edges towards the orbs of her irises, a reminder of all the crying she had done.

Then, slowly, she pushed Shinji onto his back, pinning him down.

"You scream like a little girl." She lowered her head, her face drawing closer to him. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in waves and fell around them like a curtain. "It's okay. I used to be a little girl myself."

Shinji could not tell how but he knew what she was going to do, and that it meant something for them he had not dared to consider. Her intentions were etched on her face, where only moments before there had been nothing but pain and dejection.

"Asuka … are you sure?" he asked, a tiny sliver of fear creeping into his voice. "I don't want to…hurt you."

Asuka nodded solemnly. She used her fingers to trace the contour of his jaw and then gently cupped his cheek. Her gaze, bristling with a mix of pain and warmth, never left his.

"You can't hurt me any more than I already am." She shook her head. "But you stayed with me when other people would have just left, and I know I don't deserve that. So right now I'm just going to do what I feel like doing to make you happy. And even if I don't deserve it, maybe I can find a little happiness for my own. Just for a while."

Her rosy lips parted, and she closed her eyes as she descended on him.

Shinji had waited for this moment for so long. He had always been torn by his feelings towards her. In the darker days of the fight with the Angels he couldn't bear to be with her. Asuka had become so hostile, so angry. Everything she said was an insult, all she did was hurt him. He hadn't known if he could live with her. It was the most painful time he could recall. But he'd come to identify with her and her pain.

It was not, he realized, that he was there for her. It was simply that he was hers. That he belonged to her—all of him. He always had, ever since meeting her.

Their lips met gently, with nothing more than a caress, but that was enough for Shinji to feel a shockwave of electricity flowing through him. The sensation flooded her every cell, and ate its way into his being. It became almost like a tangible thing and he opened himself to it.

Never had he shared such an intimate bond with another human being. Never felt this way about anyone.

Faced which such heartfelt comfort, Shinji caved in and submitted to her, his body relaxing instinctively under her kiss.

The smell of her hair surrounded him, and her taste poured into him. He looked deep within himself, down into the very core of who he was, and realized he was starving for her. His mind became a blur where all he could make out was the warm sensation in his mouth as they worked their lips against each other.

It was not their first kiss, but it was the first time it felt right. Before Asuka had teased and goaded him into kissing her, even bringing up his dead mother. Then she had held his nose and pinched it until he turned blue while kissing him. It had not been entirely unpleasant, just strange. Now it was different.

Asuka intoxicated him as he pressed harder against her lips, feeling them quiver and part further, relishing more of her taste. He was drunk with it.

In this moment, only the two of them existed in the world.

Had he not needed to breathe, Shinji would have kissed Asuka forever. Just as he had said he would be with her forever. But that was not to be. When the kiss finally broke they both gasped for air, and locked eyes with each other again.

His mouth moved before he even knew what he was going to say. "I ..."

Asuka put a finger on his lips to quiet him. "You are doing so well, Third Child," she whispered into his ear, her hot breath tickling him. "Don't screw it up by talking."

* * *

The holding cage on which the remains of Unit-08 had been placed for examination reeked of LCL and Bakelite. It was a strange odor, pungent but not quite offensive, and definitely not something Misato thought she would ever get used to.

The cage was riddled with metal catwalks and movable bridges spanning from every direction and converging in certain points along the half-sunken Evangelion. There were enough cables to wire an entire city, or so Misato imagined.

Unit-08 itself, or the larger bits that where left, were being held up by trusses hanging from the ceiling. It was mostly a torso, its core clearly visible. Most of its head was missing, exposing part of the upper stem of its spine where it had been broken off the base of the skull.

"Fill me in, Ritsuko," the Major said as she trotted across a catwalk to where NERV's Chief Scientist was standing, among improvised computer terminals. "What's the verdict?"

In front of them was Unit-08's entry-plug, badly dented and torn. A huge puncture hole sank halfway down its length, where a broken rib had penetrated the metal and almost severed the pilot's leg.

Ritsuko did not look away from her computer screen. "Not much," she said. "I suppose it's a good thing we stopped Asuka when we did. If she had actually gotten to the entry-plug itself we would have pulled a corpse. But it still took a beating and we can't rescue any of the pilot's data. At least the core is intact."

Shockingly so, in fact. "Yeah, I'm surprised she didn't try to destroy it. She knows it's the best way to destroy an Angel."

"I would venture to say she wasn't trying to destroy the Angel," Ritsuko said, removing her glasses and placing them on top of the terminal. "Inflicting as much damage as she did, it didn't really matter. Besides, the pilot was the link between the Angel and the Eva. Once the pilot was incapacitated it was over."

Misato ran a hand through her hair. It bothered her how Ritsuko kept saying 'the pilot' as if somehow addressing Keiko by name would lend her a measure of humanity she would rather avoid. "Do you think she felt anything?"

"The link was connected," Risuko said dispassionately. "You know that. If she was conscious, she—"

"Felt everything," Misato finished, her heart in pieces. She had tried not to think about this, but even Asuka's miserable situation could not prevent her from considering Keiko's more horrendous fate. Once again, Misato was glad there were no recordings from inside the plug. It must have been screaming from beginning to end.

"It won't make you feel better, but she probably didn't last more than a few seconds before going into shock. She was never very resilient to begin with. Had their places been reversed, I have no doubt Asuka would have retained some consciousness right until—"

"God, Ritsuko," Misato cut her off.

The blonde doctor made a face of disgust. "Unfortunately, the Almighty is not very good with data retrieval."

Desperate for a distraction, Misato looked up at the remains of Unit-08 and said, "You should really take thing that down."

"No," Ritsuko said. "The entry-plug is just one part. We need to retrieve some data from the Eva as well. That way we'll be able to gain a better understanding of what happened." She pushed away from her console and rose, stretching her arms.

"And here I thought the Commander wouldn't care to understand anything as long as the job gets done." Misato came to stand by one of the handrails lining the catwalk next to the computer. She leaned the small of her back against it, giving her attention fully to Ritsuko.

"This isn't your responsibility" the doctor said. "Did you make the trip all the way down here to be a cynic?"

"I'm not being a cynic, I'm being honest," Misato replied. "And before you ask, I didn't come down here to be honest either. I have to talk to you about Asuka."

Ritsuko gave her a nod. "Oh, that. Haruna talked to me yesterday. How much time do you want?"

"I think a--" Misato caught herself. "Wait, what?"

"How much time do you think she needs?" Ritsuko said, rephrasing the question. "Maybe a week. Seems only fair."

Misato pushed away from the railing, her mouth agape. "You don't have a problem with this?"

"No. It doesn't really matter. Asuka's next activation will be her last. Unit-02 will be shut down and placed into storage. Unit-01 will assume the primary combat role from now on. The Commander has already signed the order."

"Wait a minute." Misato felt distress leaking into her voice, an empty sensation in the pit of her stomach. "You are taking Unit-02 away from her? Ritsuko, in the condition she's in something like that would just crush her."

"That may be so, but at least she'll be safe. So will we."

Misato could not keep from lashing out. "Since when have you cared about anyone's safety?"

"If you mean Keiko, we did everything we could have done to protect her," Ritsuko said unemotionally. "It's not as if we like to waste precious resources. But accidents are an unfortunate part of our operations. I think, however, that we can both agree that what happened out there was not an accident. And that Asuka, in some way, was responsible."

"Ritsuko, don't you dare!"

"I do not believe it was all her fault," the doctor added. "Otherwise I would have just locked her up for trying to kill Keiko, don't you think? No, something did go wrong. And not even you can argue that we should simply forget about it and continue with business as usual. Besides, would you really want her out there the next time there's an attack? Next to Shinji?"

Misato bit her lip. The truth was that she didn't. She did not consider that an accusation against Asuka, but she had to admit Ritsuko had a point. If a weapon malfunctioned—Unit-02, Asuka was not a weapon—it was foolish to use it again until the problem was fixed.

"No one wants to be cruel," Ritsuko said. "I know Eva mean everything to Asuka. Her whole life is defined by her ability to pilot it. But even though I know it will hurt her, shutting it down is all we can do for now. It doesn't have to be permanent. Once we understand the problem and can operate Unit-02 safely then she can have it back."

Misato snorted. "Yeah, because Asuka is so rational when it comes to her Eva. Of course she'll see it that way."

"However she sees it is not really relevant. I do find it ironic that you were so concerned for her having some time off and now it bothers you that after next week she won't be required to pilot again. In essence, you have gotten just what you set out to get."

"Be careful what you wish for, right?" Misato said sarcastically. "You use her and then when you run into a problem you just throw her aside."

"It's only fitting," Ritsuko said. "Life in its lowest form is exploitation."

"I suppose that's what you told yourself when you were in the brig." Misato folded her arms across her chest, not wanting to look at Ritsuko anymore. Above her, Unit-08 was not a much better sight. She took a deep breath. "You know, as much as everyone seems to want to blame Asuka, we really are all responsible. Keiko should have never been out there. Sending her was a crime."

"Spoken like someone who doesn't realize that what she does for a living is send children to war. Meanwhile, have you even been to see her?"

"No," Misato admitted, swallowing much of the guilt she felt so it wouldn't show. "I've been too busy with Asuka."

"If you want to make amends, I suggest you start there." That actually sounded like good advice, coming from Ritsuko no less.

Misato nodded. "I think I will."

* * *

The bandage around his ankle was not too much trouble, but the makeshift splint keeping him from being able to move his middle finger made it awkward for Shinji to even hold the remote control. As a result most of the clicking had been done by Asuka until she got tired of it and set it aside. It was late; though they had been watching television for quite a while, neither one really care for what was on.

Dinner had consisted of the only thing the brown-haired boy could fix with one hand—frozen microwave ramen noodles. Even that was a chore. Holding the chopsticks with his left hand was almost impossible. Shinji ended up slurping from the cup instead. It gave Asuka good laugh. The redhead could have made something for them, of course, but, well, she was Asuka.

She had been quiet for a long time now, having hardly said anything since leaving her bedroom. Shinji could tell from the thoughtful look on her face that she was trying to figure things out in her head.

He was thankful for the respite. There were still too many things about this situation he either did not understand or was not entirely comfortable with. But there were also some things he had already made peace with.

"I want to get some sleep."

Shinji, lying on back in front of the TV, his head on a pillow next to hers, turned to look at her. Normally she would just get up and go to her room.

Asuka was talking again before he could ask. "I haven't slept all week. Well, only when they gave me pills in quarantine, but when you wake up from those you feel like you've been awake all night anyway. And last night I," she frowned, "I had a really bad night. I don't want to be on my own."

"Oh, okay." He understood. Since they had done it before it didn't even seem that weird of a suggestion. "Your bed or mine?"

"Yours, of course."

Gently pushing Pen-pen off his chest, where he'd been dozing contently, Shinji tried to stand, and was reminded that there was more wrong with him than his right hand.

Asuka watched him wincing in pain as he got up and put weight on his bandaged ankle, and stretched an arm around him to help. "Sorry I had to kick you, but you can be so stubborn."

"Yeah ... I know, I just keep coming back," he said, letting her take him to the door, moving as gingerly as possible and leaning on her. He suddenly became very much aware that she had no bra under her shirt and, for that matter, that some parts of her panties were brushing up against his shorts. "But did you have to do it so hard?"

They crossed the narrow hallway hobbling together, Shinji's right arm around Asuka's shoulders and her left arm around his waist. They laid on his small bed, neither willing to let their touch abandon the other. As they did, Shinji instinctively pulled her to him, their bodies nuzzling on the warm sheets.

Asuka curled up, feeling his arms still protectively around her. "Will you be here when I wake up?"

There was a maelstrom of fear and longing lost among the words of that question, as if the answer were so important that a wrong answer would threaten to destroy everything in Asuka's world. The Third Child didn't really know what he should say. Instead, he said what felt right to him. "Yes, I will."

Asuka closed her eyes. "I'll see you later then."

Shinji held her tighter. At that very moment, all the things he'd always feared about Asuka, and his relationship with her, seemed to evaporate in the warmth of their embrace.

Ever since meeting her, Asuka had always been one part of his life that he found extremely perplexing, to say the least. And it was a part he always failed to comprehend. She had such a complex character—a second ago she had been kicking him and crying and now she was lying comfortably and meekly next to him. She had hurt him, then yelled that she didn't want to hurt him. Other people would have though of her as a hypocrite, and, worse, downright abusive.

A few months ago those other people would have included Shinji, and while that did not mean Asuka was not a hypocrite or abusive, the change in his attitude meant he had come to understand that the things she said and did were not just what they seemed. That they stemmed from the same kind of pain he had himself experienced.

Shinji had always felt that he shared a bond with Asuka, but he didn't quite realize how much she had come to mean to him until after one of the previous Angels had been defeated—back then he had risked his own life to protect her, and, in an ironic twist, she ended up saving him. And this realization had finally brought him to admit it that he cared for Asuka.

Amazingly, he found out that she cared back, that they needed each other to escape their own loneliness. From here the feeling blossomed and eventually morphed into something else. A thing so great that he couldn't describe it, let alone put it into words he could share with Asuka.

He was afraid she wouldn't correspond the feeling the way he hoped, that she would decide that it was not worth it and push away. Despite everything they had gone through together, there was still fear. Shinji found that hard to believe, but he knew it was true. The feeling remained, however, pushing him ever closer towards Asuka.

And now, having shared his second kiss with her, the fear was gone.

Everyone at school already considered them a couple, and the way their relationship had grown would make it appear that they actually were. Ultimately, it was just an illusion, a cauldron of mixed feelings and unspoken emotions. Lying there on his bed, his arms around her slender form, Shinji wanted to end the illusion and make it a reality. For he knew now what he'd seemed to know all his life.

"I love you, Asuka."

"I know."

* * *

**To be Continued. **


	12. Entanglement

Notes: Insert the usual disclaimer here. I would like to thank User-iel for the extensive feedback on this chapter and all the notations on previous ones as well. Also, there's Jimmy, Nemo and the guys (and girls) at Evageeks who keep urging me to go on. Hopefully it wasn't too long of a wait between chapters. I think it will be worth it. Be warned, there a little eechi content here.

As always, if you like it review. This story is in so many favorites I've stopped counting, but if only half those people would drop a review I'd be happy. It is not that hard.

Only getting started on chapter 13. Still don't have a very good idea where to take it, but I'll come up with something. Now read on!

Revised: October 15, 2009.

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended**

**"My heart is strung like a lute; If you touch it, it resounds." -De Beranger.**

**Genocide 0:12 / Entanglement.**

* * *

Musical notes flowed like a gentle river, merging together into a never-ending stream. Every stroke of the keys elevated her, soothed her, made her feel as thought she was being held by a loved one. It was so ecstatic that she could even imagine herself forgetting the pain of her existence. As long as she heard the notes and played the keys, she was in heaven.

So it was that Keiko Nagara sat at the piano again, still dressed in her yellow-and-white plugsuit, with the notes milling around her. She was in a spotlight. All she could see was the piano in front of her and the infinite darkness beyond. Her gloved fingers danced over the keys, reciting a rich fugue, completely out of her conscious control but fueled by her own instinct, her own passion.

Keiko couldn't remember why she had given up on the piano in the first place. She had stopped practicing just after her mother died and then simply neglected to pick it up again, and eventually she just forgot. After that traumatic event, the notes no longer had any meaning to her. They felt cold, and heartbreaking, reminding her of all she had lost, and of …

Mommy.

Suddenly, she remembered. The music ceased. Keiko's fingers froze over the keys and she couldn't bring herself to play another note. She rose to her feet and leaned over the piano, supporting herself with her arms, her head sinking between her shoulders.

Teardrops splashed against the piano, making small puddles on the glossy black surface. Feeling the awful weight of grief, Keiko let her knees buckle under her. She collapsed in a heap over the keyboard, her elbows jamming the keys, and buried her head in her arms. Utterly heartbroken, she started to cry.

She didn't know how much time passed after that. Hours, days, weeks. There was no sense of time in this place. Even the glowing LED clock on the back of her glove had stopped working. It didn't matter. She could have been crying forever.

Then she felt a hand landing gently on her shoulder. Keiko looked up, fearing what she would see next, but through tear-blurred eyes saw the ghostly figure of Rei Ayanami.

"A-Ayanami?" Keiko stammered. "W-hat are you doing here?"

Although her eyes were glowing red, they were not eerie. Far from being scared of her, Keiko felt a warmth in her touch had that been missing from her life for as long as she could remember. "Can you play again?" Rei said.

At first Keiko didn't understand, then she looked at the piano. "Oh." She rubbed the balls of her hands over her eyes. "I … I'm not any good."

"Please." Rei's expression softened.

Keiko had never really gotten to meet her. They had been classmates for months, but even that was a flimsy association; everyone considered Rei to be weird and hanging out with her would not be advised if one wanted to be popular. In fact, it was social suicide. Like many other things, Keiko felt she had been wrong about her.

When Rei sat on the bench, Keiko no longer an excuse not to play. She got up and sat next to her, setting her hands over the glossy white keys. Then she looked at Rei. "Do you want to learn?"

Rei set her hands on the keys, mimicking the brunette. "Yes."

Keiko smiled.

"Are you happy?" Rei asked.

"Because I'm smiling?" She closed her brown eyes and recalled the notes. Almost on their own, her fingers began moving over the keys, and the notes poured into existence. "No, not really. I can't be happy here. Um, wherever here is. I'm just glad I'm not alone anymore."

"Loneliness is part of living, is it not?" Rei said, her hands still over the keys, not playing. "How can you always be with someone else?"

Keiko shook her head. "I don't think you understand," she said. "Being by yourself and being alone are not the same thing. Loneliness is … something you feel inside. You don't even have to be by yourself to be lonely. It's okay. Most people don't figure that out, but I've been feeling that way for so long that I can't remember much else."

She really couldn't. Even more recent events, things that should be clear in her mind, weren't. She had a feeling, however, that might not be such a bad thing.

What little of the battle she could remember were flashes of pain punctuated by moments of sheer terror. The last distinct memory she had was the Angel touching her body, violating her as she screamed and cried and struggled. It filled her head with painful images—of her mother dying, of Asuka ignoring and then hurting her, of Miko wanting to leave her. It felt like her mind was breaking.

Then it stopped, and a lot of things had gone missing, leaving empty spaces in her mind like holes filled with nothing. But between the holes there was the color red and more pain. The sounds of breaking bones drowned out only by her own screams. Terror like she had never felt. At some point the screams turned into words as she begged Asuka to stop.

To stop what? Keiko didn't know, and couldn't remember anything else after that besides the feeling of loneliness, which was so familiar as to have become comforting. She woke up here and had no more pain since.

She wished Asuka were with her. She would feel better with Asuka. And yet, somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew the redhead was the reason she ended up in this strange place.

"Should I hate her?" Keiko asked Rei.

"You should decide on your own," the blue-haired girl said, and started to play. Two melodies filled the air, complementing each other.

Keiko had lost count of how many times Asuka made her rush into the girl's bathrooms to cry, normally after insulting her or yelling at her or abusing her in some other way. Yet, despite that, she had continued to try to be her friend. She wanted to share in all the things that made the redhead so outstanding—her popularity among other students, but also her pride and beauty and bravery. Asuka never saw her as anything other than a punching bag, and Keiko thought that perhaps she should hate her.

Until that day in NERV's infirmary when she reached her breaking point, only to have Asuka put a hand on her head in a gesture of unexpected sympathy. And Keiko hugged her and cried on her shoulder, and though it made the other girl uncomfortable, she did not pull away.

For all the pain and suffering Asuka had caused her, it was that moment that stood out most. Here was someone who, owing her nothing and having no regard whatsoever for her, had refused to abandon her. They made a connection that day, deep and meaningful and very personal. Asuka stayed with her, and from then on started being nicer.

One small gesture of kindness—Keiko could never hate Asuka after that. And she felt so certain of it there was no need for her to say it, nor for Rei to hear it.

For a moment there was only the music between them. Then Rei spoke again.

"Do you wish to go back?" she said. "Life will be very different for you."

"I know." Keiko didn't know how, just that she did. She kept her eyes closed and focused on the notes, her nimble fingers dancing on the keys. "How bad do you think it is?"

"I am not a doctor, so I cannot fully know."

"What about Miko?" Keiko asked, feeling strangely at peace with the idea of dying.

"Your sister would miss you."

Keiko's eyes shot open. The music stopped. She turned her head to Rei in astonishment. "My sister?"

"That is what she called you," Rei said, still playing. "I understand that part of your bond now. Family, and what it means. I used to believe that there were barriers between people. That these barriers were fixed, and that they fit within certain definitions. But that is not the case. If is it possible to care for someone as if they were family even though they are not, then these definitions do not apply."

Keiko laughed good-naturedly. "Rei, it's really not that complicated." She placed her gloved left hand over her heart, keeping her right on the piano, hovering just over the keys. "People care for one another. That's just part of what it is to be human."

"Not always."

"No, not always," Keiko admitted. "But Asuka showed me that even someone like her is capable of it. That people are drawn to one another even if they don't like each other. It's people that make life worth living."

Rei gave her a tilt of her head, red eyes narrowing ever so slightly. The rest of her expression did not change, but she seemed thoughtful.

Keiko didn't feel compelled to explain her answer. Her right hand finally moved away from the piano. In her heart she knew—she had played her last note.

* * *

Asuka could not sleep. She sat curled up on the bed, staring absently into the darkness. Beside her, Shinji slept peacefully, off in whatever dream his brain had taken him to, barely visible in the dark of his room.

The images brought out of the nightmare that had awoken her started to fade into her subconscious. Like every other night it had been terrifying and vivid, and ended with her holding the boy next to her—the boy she had given her heart to—dead in her arms. There was blood smeared all over their bodies, glinting brightly through the thick haze that hung in the air.

That Shinji wasn't some stupid crush anymore only made it worse. He was part of her; the part that kept her going; that made her carry on when there was only sadness around her. Loosing him was not something she was sure she could endure.

Asuka was annoyed to find tears welling up in her eyes and wondered sourly if Shinji was really asleep or just faking it. It would be just like him to try to avoid her when she was like this.

With a glare in his direction, she rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. The light hurt her eyes as she leaned over the sink, splashing water on her face, hoping to wash away both her tears and the remnants of the nightmare. The girl staring back at her from the other side of the mirror did not seem like herself. It was hard to believe the careworn expression and messy hair was all that was left of the once proud Second Child.

"What's the matter with you, Asuka?" she asked the girl in the mirror. "It's not your fault that you love him. And he loves you. That's what you wanted, right? Isn't that enough?"

But that was not what she had wanted. The desire of her heart had never been a willful decision, had never been something she had envisioned happening; on the contrary, she had abhorred it, feared it, been sickened by it. And yet, there was no reasoning with her rogue feelings.

She had tried her best to drive him away. To hurt him just enough to make him realize he would be better off without her. In her desperation, it was all she could do. He refused. And when he said he would be with her forever, when he said he would live for her, all her resolve shattered.

That was the moment when she knew Shinji loved her. Beyond any doubt, she knew. She had been so engrossed in her own misery that she had forgotten she still had a beating heart, a heart that did not have to live perpetually in hurt—that could still feeling things like caring and comfort and companionship. It had felt wonderful.

But it was just a moment, and once the warmth of the kiss disappeared she was again left only with her nightmares.

After a few painful minutes Asuka could not stand the sight of her own reflection and dropped her head, slumping over the sink until her forehead was inches away from the faucet. She closed her eyes, and in the darkness of her mind the awful memory of the nightmare began to resurface, sending hot anguish rolling over her, threatening to overwhelm whatever emotional defenses she had left.

She shook her head and pushed away. She could not stand straight anymore, her proud posture forgotten. Her shoulders slumped as she sighed. The girl in the mirror sighed as well. Unable to face her, Asuka looked down at her feet.

The sound of her breathing filled the bathroom, deep calming breaths meant to steel her against the night. Then, when she finally thought she could take it, she returned to Shinji's room. For all practical purposes it was her room now as well because she could no longer sleep alone. How pathetic. She was a little girl again, afraid to be alone, afraid to be abandoned. Just plain afraid.

Shinji was just were she left him, sleeping peacefully, unaware of her troubles.

"You don't know how lucky you are, Third Child," Asuka murmured, casting her glance at the nightstand and the bottle of sleeping pills laying on top that she had refused to take out of pride.

That she had managed to last a week like this was as remarkable as it was frustrating. But right now she wanted some sleep, her pride be damned.

* * *

"Keiko Nagara just ..." that was as far as the voice on the phone got before Junichi Nakayima hung up and rushed to his car.

He had to be honest—the call had not been a surprise. He had been expecting it for a while, and had time to think about what he would say. He'd have to lie, of course, to say it was a tragedy when in reality it was the most likely outcome. Miko would likely hate him for it, but was the truth.

Now, fifteen minutes later, he ran down a hallway in Central Dogma's medical ward, his heart hammering against his ribcage. He was out of breath by the time he found the correct room. Taking a deep gulp of air, he steadied himself for what was about to come, for the grief and pain that came with death, and opened the door.

Like all other rooms in this part of the ward, this one was mostly filled with medical equipment designed for life support functions, surrounding a large bed. There were several doctors in the room, strange looks on their faces that he could not quite identify—only in passing did he notice the blue-haired girl, Rei Ayanami, standing nearby. But his attention became fixed on the two figures on the bed.

Miko was crying as she embraced the body of her ward, 14-year-old and one time Eva pilot Keiko Nagara, bowed over her and holding the younger girl's shoulders and clutching her head tightly to her chest. Keiko looked awful; her little broken form was covered in bandages, her right arm in a cast, her right leg in a kind of plastic contraption that also looked oddly like a cast but more complicated. She was lucky to keep that leg at all.

Nakayima could not see either of their faces, but he knew Miko's had to be twisted into the sort of anguished mask that would haunt him for years. Death had always been an easy thing to deal with. War had a way of desensitizing you to it. Yet this was far beyond anything he had experienced before. This was someone he cared for.

What could he do? He couldn't just stand there and look on and pretend that it didn't affect him. Getting involved with them meant he was not afforded the benefit of distance. Nakayima stepped closer, and gently placed his hand on Miko's shoulder.

"It's okay," he said, feeling like a heartless idiot. Of course it was not okay; Miko had just lost someone very dear to her. The words were hollow, but it was all he could offer. He regretted coming here, intruding on her. Regretted that he couldn't offer her more.

Slowly, Miko's crying diminished as she pulled away from the object of her grief and suddenly, incredibly, Nakayima was confronted with a pair of eyes.

Brown eyes.

Keiko was looking at him.

Something caught inside his chest. A strangely taught sensation like the first time he saw someone survive being shot in the chest without wearing body armor. It was something that just a few seconds ago he was sure couldn't happen, and yet it just had.

Nakayima was staring, his eyes frozen open, unblinking. And in that brief moment, everything he thought he knew about life and death went out the window. Miko wasn't crying from anguish; she was crying from happiness.

"How..." he managed to ask, not taking his eyes from the two girls.

One of the doctors, a woman in her fifties with black hair, standing farthest away from the bed heard him and walked over.

"We don't know," she said and shook her head. She sounded as disbelieving as Nakayima felt. "Nobody can make any sense of it. One minute she's in a deep coma, the next she's hitting the emergency page. Her body is holding together, and her mind is all there. She seems alert, too. Remarkable, considering what she's been through." She nodded towards the blue-haired girl. "Rei was here when it happened. She said Keiko just woke up."

Nakayima didn't give Rei much thought. He had seen her around, and it had always made sense to him that the Children would check up on one another. His attention went back to the doctor. "Can she recover?"

"In time and with therapy she can recover somewhat fully. Her right leg is the biggest concern. Most of her thigh is gone, so if she does walk she will need a crutch. The sutures make everything far more delicate. She's already got several rods in her femur and fibula, but we can't put them in a permanent cast because we have to change bandages. People have lived through worse." The doctor looked at Miko. "Modern medicine is a wonderful thing. And she has someone who loves her."

"Is she in pain?"

"No," another doctor said. "We have several blocks in place. The nerves on her leg are all numbed. We'll need to do some testing to prevent any further damage. Her psychology could also be an issue. We can't just CAT-Scan for that kind of damage, and there's really no telling what the Angel did to her mind. We do have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, though."

"And you are sure there is no way to explain how this happened?" Nakayima asked incredulously. "I mean, maybe you missed something."

Both doctors shook their heads.

"Who cares how it happened—who cares why," Miko's voice was weak and hoarse. She beamed down at Keiko, pure joy lighting up her face. The younger girl did her best to smile as Miko stroked her hair with the loving tenderness of a mother. "All that matters is that it happened. Isn't it?"

Keiko nodded, looking at her for a moment then back at Nakayima. Her lips moved but if she uttered any words they were too weak to be audible.

"It's from the respirator," the first doctor said. "She's lost her voice for the next couple of days. Nothing to be concerned about."

"I think she wants you to come closer," Miko said, addressing Nakayima.

Keiko nodded, then lifted her left arm, heavily bandaged from knuckles to shoulder, and made a writing gesture. The doctor handed Nakajima a pad and a pen, which he then handed to Keiko. She moved awkwardly; the pen didn't quite fit between her fingers and the bandages were so cumbersome she couldn't hold it very well. Miko had to help her, holding her hand tenderly, both of their fingers knotted together around the pen; Nakayima held the pad as Keiko wrote.

Her script was rough and nearly unreadable. Like most people, she was right handed—the same arm she now had in a cast, shattered and unusable.

Sad as that fact might be, it was what she wrote on the paper that moved him almost to tears.

'Sorry for that night.'

Nakayima remembered the dinner they had together, when Miko had invited him. Keiko acted put-upon all evening, and maybe a little rude. He understood where she was coming from; nobody liked to have a stranger come into their home like that. But even after all she had been through, for Keiko to—

"No," he said, somehow keeping his voice from breaking down completely. "You were right to be mad at me."

Keiko shook her head, which had to hurt because there was a bandage around her neck and made her wince. She mouthed silently, "My fault."

All he could do was nod at her and try to smile. He never thought he would meet somebody like her. He would expect her to be angry and bitter. Her life as a healthy teenager was over. She was an innocent victim, attacked and mauled to within an inch of her life. And yet there she was, apologizing to him.

It wasn't fair—he was the one who owed her apologies, and maybe more than that. People like her deserved to live full, happy lives. People like him didn't.

It just wasn't fair.

Long ago, Nakayima had become convinced that there was a reason and a cause for everything. His cynical view of the world had never given him the chance to put much trust in religion. But maybe he'd just failed to realize that having faith did not mean you had to believe in something, you simply had to believe that some things just needed to happen. And if he was wrong about that, then maybe he was wrong about everything else.

Looking down at Keiko, Nakayima didn't understand what had happened in this room, but there was no need to. It just happened, and the people he cared for were better for it. That was enough. That was everything.

He left the two girls to each other a few minutes later, feeling more determined than he had in a long time.

They were happy now. Despite everything. Nakayima would dedicate the rest of his life to make sure that lasted. And the first thing he needed to do was get both of them out of Musashi Kluge's reach.

* * *

"I see." Gendo Ikari said calmly.

He had barely made a gesture as Fuyutsuki delivered his report. This was not unusual; he was just one of those people with an uncanny ability to keep his thoughts from showing on his features, and after years in his employ Fuyutsuki had learned not to take offense at his superior's lack of response.

"Would you like me to follow up?" Fuyutsuki asked. It was merely protocol, as he already knew the answer.

"No, no need to keep me informed." Ikari leaned back on his chair. "Are you sure Rei was there?"

"Positive," Fuyutsuki said. He had already debriefed the doctors. "There is no evidence that she was involved in any way, obviously, but I do find it highly suspicious. And you know better than I what she is capable of doing."

Ikari nodded. "I do, but I doubt Rei understands herself well enough to realize it."

"Does it worry you?" Fuyutsuki asked. Even if Ikari was not willing to admit it, he hoped to make it understood that he knew this was a problem. If Rei was involved it created a dangerous scenario, since so much depended on her.

"I had not expected to predict all her actions," Ikari said, his glasses glinting in the light from the large window behind him. "Rei is a human being still and therefore has free will. She is not a messiah, but she is merely the instrument by which the choice is made."

Fuyutsuki nodded stoically, but Ikari's words did little to reassure him. This was more or less what they had wanted to avoid. Rei was unpredictably human. She could be expected to do as she was told because it was Gendo Ikari telling her to do it, nothing more.

It would be up to her to decide in the end, regardless of anything Ikari, or anyone else, had to say in the matter. And if Ikari thought this was the kind of issue to be underestimated, Fuyutsuki thought he should know better. His former student was a rogue, Fuyutsuki reminded himself yet again, as he often did these days. He had known that since he had first met him, but this time the stakes were much too high to allow such complacency.

How matter how he tried to rationalize it, the plain truth was that Fuyutsuki thought Ikari was making a mistake. The future could not be built from mistakes.

* * *

Perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea to go to school today, Shinji Ikari thought remorsefully.

Having declared his feelings for Asuka, despite re-enforcing their shared bond, had seemed to create a whole new set of problems. For one thing, knowing that he was in love with her and being with her essentially twenty-four hours a day, had gotten him incredibly mixed up in her moods and emotions.

The heartwarming elation of the kiss had long worn off, and he was felt with the grim realization that there was nothing romantic about what they were doing. It was more like they had come to a silent understanding with one another. They were reassured of their feelings, but not quite enough that they could have anything called romance. He already wondered whether the way they felt was really love instead of just a new kind of desperation, one more way to escape the sad loneliness that filled both their hearts.

And though he had never been in love before and never even been with someone, he wondered if the same could be said of Asuka. She certainly seemed to know what was expected of him as a boyfriend—and he was that, though neither of them had actually talked about their relationship in terms of boyfriend and girlfriend—better than he did. This left her acting surly and him feeling like he was letting her down when he failed to meet her expectations.

It wasn't what he said or did, not really; rather it was what he didn't. Asuka would strike up a conversation seemingly just for the sake of talking and then berated him if he didn't appear interested. At times she'd move uncomfortably close to him when they were watching television and looked hurt if he tensed as their bare arms or legs brushed against the other, as if if she thought he didn't want to touch her.

Shinji just didn't understand—she knew he wanted to be with her, yet she still acted like he didn't. Asking her had done him no good. She refused to answer, instead giving him a look that indicated he should know already. How was he supposed to when she never bothered to explain anything?

This morning seemed to be another one of those situations.

Shinji hadn't thought about Asuka when Misato had insisted he go to school. Asuka had a university degree; she didn't have to worry about such mundane concerns. But waking up to find him wearing his uniform had really seemed to tick her off. He hadn't at all thought she would want to come with him just to avoid being cooped up alone in the apartment all day.

In other words, he'd been stupid. He should know not make assumptions about Asuka anymore, as he had done in the past. Only bad things had ever come out of doing that.

Shinji hadn't dared say anything to her over breakfast, which he prepared while Asuka got dressed, or as they walked to the train station, thinking that she didn't seem to be in such a good mood. Several times he caught her looking at him with barely restrained accusation. She seemed to want to say something herself but didn't, and her mood soon became plainly bitter.

When they finally boarded the train and sat down near the back Shinji could hold his silence no longer.

"Um, Asuka, are you sure you want to come?" he started tentatively, careful to make it clear he was interested but did not mean to encroach on her.

Asuka turned her head, pinning him with her angry blue gaze.

Shinji gulped, adding, "I mean, if you don't want to go to school…you don't have to."

"I can decide for myself if I want to leave the apartment, Third Child," she said a little acidly. She had her hair tied up in two long ponytails, held high on either side of head by red rubber bands. It was weird to see her in public without her neural connectors. Shinji had to admit she looked more girly this way. "Besides, between the quarantine and the apartment, I haven't been outside in two weeks."

As good an excuse as that might be, it did little to ease Shinji's mind. And there had to be more because nothing related to Asuka was ever that simple.

"It's just that …" Shinji hesitated, treading carefully. "I didn't mean to leave you alone, I just didn't think you'd mind if I went to school. And … and if it's my fault ... I'm sor— "

"Are you stupid?" Asuka frowned at him, the gesture accenting the dark lines around her eyes. "You want to help? Don't apologize. You know I hate it. And stop acting like such a doormat, okay?"

"Sorry," Shinji replied before he could restrain himself.

"God!" Asuka cringed. She scooted away on the seat, glaring at him. "You are impossible, you know that."

Shinji looked down at the empty space between them. "I just thought maybe you felt … I don't know. And maybe wanted to talk about it," he mumbled. "We haven't talked a lot lately."

"Just because I sleep in your bed doesn't mean I have to tell you everything!" Asuka shouted shrilly.

The train was fairly crowded—this time of the morning most of the crowd were students, like them, on their way to school—so it would have been easy for anyone else to overhear a regular conversation under normal circumstances. The sudden increase in the volume of her voice all but guaranteed it. Quite a few people, even those sitting towards the front of the car, turned their heads in her and Shinji's direction.

Shinji blushed a deep crimson as the different, more embarrassing, meanings of Asuka's words popped into his head. He caught a few snickers from some students, and some jealous looks as well.

That's what I get for opening my mouth, he thought and settled into a gloomy silence. Asuka was not the sort of girl that could be made to open up by being asked. She talked when she was ready. That was how she was, and aside from a few lapses Shinji had come to accept it.

Thus, he was a little surprised when Asuka spoke up again after a minute.

"You know, as tactless as you are, there is something…" she paused, her pretty face thoughtful. "It's got nothing to do with you—not really, I suppose—so quit acting like it's your fault. I know I'm being pathetic feeling this way, but … Unit-02's activation is tomorrow. The first activation since, well, you know."

Shinji had a feeling this would come up sooner or later and was not looking forward to it. Somehow, with all the time they had spent together lately, Asuka had neither spoken about Unit-02 or the last battle, or, for that matter, her next activation. So far she had seemed keen to avoid anything related to her Eva, the most visible evidence of this being the neural connectors currently missing from her hair. He couldn't blame her; he had all but quit NERV after the incident with Toji.

But as much as he would rather not talk to her about this, Shinji was very well aware that he didn't have a choice. When he committed himself to Asuka, saying that he would be there, it meant more than just sitting next to her in the train.

His gaze turned back to her, then unconsciously traveled down her body to avoid meeting her eyes. "Misato said everything would be fine."

Asuka scoffed. "And you believe her? She's just telling you what you want to hear. She's scared. They all are. Because of what happened last time. Because of what I did."

A memory was triggered in Shinji's mind. "You told me once that as long as you defeated the Angel, as long as it was the right thing ..."

Asuka shifted in her seat, her posture stiffening. "Yeah, well, it's not the same thing talking about it and actually doing it. Pragmatism doesn't do you any good when you almost snuffed out someone's life." As she spoke the haughtiness in her voice changed into anguish. "I mean, really, I didn't like Nagara, but ... I almost killed her. She could still die. And that just makes me a mur—"

"I … almost killed someone too, remember?" Shinji cut her off before she could call herself a murderer. He did not, in fact, want to remember, but it was the best way he could to relate to her even if it caused him pain.

"This is different. You didn't want to hurt anyone. What Unit-02 did … it was me who did it. I hurt Nagara. I wanted to hurt her. I just—" she looked down at her hands "—I was so angry and suddenly it was like I didn't have to hold back. Like something in me decided it didn't like being human anymore and just came loose."

Shinji clutched the strap of his book bag slung cross his chest. "Asuka ... an N2 mine had just gone off right in front of you," he said hesitantly, but with as much sympathy as he could manage. "You were hurt. I don't think anybody blames you for what happened."

Her eyes were burning even before he finished—she already knew he would say something like that. "Nobody has to blame me. I blame myself."

"That's just how I used to feel," Shinji murmured carefully. "How I still feel some times. I mean, it's not an easy thing to live with, specially if it's someone close to you, but eventually ... I guess eventually the logic of it takes away some of the pain."

"You are so full of it, Third Child."

She was right, of course. Shinji had just wanted to comfort her by relating to the way he had felt back then, instead of making things worse by telling her that the pain wouldn't go away completely, that it would stay with her, making her feel miserable until something worse happened to her, opening a bigger wound that made this one seem small in comparison.

Shinji sank back in his seat in sullen silence, unable to think of anything else to say. Asuka glanced past him, at two boys standing close together a few feet away on the aisle. Shinji recognized them vaguely; they were in his and Asuka's class, 2-A, though he couldn't remember their names. Over the hum of the train he heard them talking.

"What happened to her hair?" The boy on the right looked over his shoulder, gesturing towards Asuka. He had light-colored hair, almost blonde, and was the taller of the pair.

"Are you complaining?" The boy on the left had much darker and shorter hair, like Toji had worn it. He was also more heavily built. "Look at her—she looks hot!"

"Did she just say she sleeps in the idiot's bed?" the first boy said, then added with a hint of envy, "Lucky bastard."

Shinji was used to people talking behind his back. Asuka, on the other hand, was not one to let things go.

True to her character, the redhead jumped to her feet, her hands clenched into fists. "What the hell are you looking at, you monkeys?" she yelled, and for once Shinji was glad he was not on the receiving end. "Don't you know it's rude to listen in on other people!"

They spun around hastily to face her, throwing their hands up in surrender. "Wait a second!" the almost-blonde boy said in a panicky tone. "We are just saying how much we like your hair!"

"Yeah!" added the other one. "That hair style looks really good on you!"

Asuka's huge ego had always made her vulnerable to compliments. Shinji learned from hard experience that it was the best and quickest way to get on her good side. But in this case she wouldn't have any of it. "Mind your own damn business if you don't want me to cut your balls off!"

She looked furious enough to do it, too, Shinji thought. He felt sorry for them, and he had little doubt from their apologetic glances they probably felt the same way for him—he was who was stuck with this redheaded psycho!

He would never think of her that way.

"Turn around, NOW!" Asuka bellowed.

"We're sorry!" Both boys turned away and dedicated themselves to staring fixedly towards the front of the train car.

Asuka huffed, her already foul mood much aggravated as she dropped into her seat beside Shinji once again, then leaned back and held a hand to her temple, closing her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Shinji said, failing to hide his concern.

"Yeah." She nodded. "I've been a little dizzy all morning. I think it might be a side effect from the sleeping pills. Being in a moving train doesn't help either."

"Um ..." Shinji didn't like the sound of that. For Asuka, who had previously declared that under no circumstance would she be taking medication, to have given up and taken the sleeping pills Misato had NERV's doctors prescribe for her meant she must be desperate. "Well, at least they help you sleep, right?"

Asuka put her hand down, draping it over the seat and heaving a sigh as she turned her head to him. Her eyes, peering at him from between her golden-red bangs, were weary, the bright blue dulled. "Can't you just stay quiet for a bit?"

There was no anger or vile or even annoyance in her words, but they made Shinji feel unwanted. As if she considered him just another nuisance even when he was honestly trying to show concern.

But it wasn't like it should surprise him. Asuka had a very one-sided opinion of what a relationship was. Feeling that she was better off if he did as she asked, Shinji decided not to say anything more. They spent the rest of the ride in silence, eventually interrupted by the screeching of the brakes as the train pulled into the station.

They got off and walked across the platform, winding through the morning crowd. Like the passengers on the train, most of the people around them were students. As they made it to the stairs, Asuka spoke again. "Have I told you what my nightmares are about, Shinji?"

Shinji was taken aback. Similarly to her and Unit-02's actions during the battle, the subject of her nightmares had become taboo between them. Asuka didn't bring them up and neither did Shinji out of respect for her privacy. "No."

And Asuka told him, with the kind of attention to detail that comes from experiencing a trauma again and again and again—told him about finding herself holding him in her arms, both their bodies bathed in blood; about ripping him apart with her Unit-02; about hurting him in more ways he could even imagine.

He knew the nightmares were the reason she started sleeping in his bed in the first place. He had been aware of them almost from the start—aware that they must be more than a fleeting thing to cause her so much grief—but the imagery and the context in which she placed them left him horrified. Like numerous other times during the past week, he had no idea what to say to her. He stopped walking and just stared.

Asuka had clearly expected him to reply, and when he didn't a shadow of resentment fell across her face. She turned away and headed down the stairs. Shinji was forced to swallow an apology.

After needing a moment to get himself together, Shinji followed her. He caught up with her at the bottom of the stairs. "Asuka, wait."

She didn't stop, or even acknowledge him. Her nose up in the air, she strode through the crowd. People seemed to know to move out of her path as she went, her black leather shoes moving so quickly Shinji had trouble keeping up even though he was wearing sneakers.

Finally, Shinji reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, bringing her to a halt. "Wait."

"Let me go!" Asuka jerked her arm away, her twin ponytails whipping around her. "What the hell is your problem?"

Shinji didn't say anything.

She stuck out her face defiantly, fixing him with a glare. "So now you know. Now you know why it's so bad. And you don't even give me that 'you would never hurt anyone' bullshit? I guess you wouldn't, because both you and I know that I would. Look at what we have. You are the closest I've come to caring for someone, and never—not once—have I been nice to you. The only reason you are still around me is because I'm the only person more screwed up than you are. Well, now you know just how screwed up I am."

"They're … they're just dreams," Shinji stuttered, though he realized it was a stupid thing to say.

"That's not what I just saw in your face!"

Shinji instantly knew he had screwed up without meaning to, without even realizing it. His stomach sinking, he raised his hands in surrender just as the boys in the train had. "I'm sorry. I just don't know what I'm supposed to—"

Had it been possible for Asuka to slap him with the look on her eyes, he had not doubt she would have done so right then and there in front of everyone. She could still slap him with her hands, however, and kick him, so he took a step back as a precaution.

"Forget it," Asuka growled, her lips twisted into a snarl, and spun around on her heels.

Shinji stood there stunned for a moment, watching her as she stormed off. Then, finally making up his mind, he followed.

* * *

As was the normal procedure, Unit-02 was secured in the main cage, sunken up to its chest in LCL fluid in order to allow the technicians to perform a complete evaluation. The web of platforms and catwalks that surrounded it provided access to several of its components, and served to house control stations tasked with storing and analyzing the data from all the checks and re-checks being conducted. But despite the careful attention, in the two weeks since the incident between Unit-02 and Unit-08 the red Evangelion and its young pilot had become synonymous with everything that was wrong in NERV.

Maya sighed, shifting her weight on the chair to relief the soreness building up in her lower back and looked up at Unit-02's huge head. Should things have been different she would have taken it upon herself to do everything possible to vindicate Asuka, who certainly deserved better than being thought of as a killer, but she had her own problems.

The brown-haired NERV Lieutenant had set up her main computer station to act as a hub on a platform around Unit-02's back. From here she had access to the entry-plug's insertion jack, as well as the diagnosis panel from which she ran a series of cables to the computers, allowing MAGI to scan the lines of code from Unit-02's operating system for errors. It was tedious, boring work, but pretty important.

Conveniently, it would also provide the perfect opportunity to do what was necessary to keep that government jackass from putting a bullet in her head.

Maya spared a scornful glance at the little memory module attached to one of computers, efficiently betraying everything she believed in. She didn't want to think about what would happen to her if she failed to provide what Musashi Kluge wanted, though he had made it absolutely clear. It was easier to focus on her work, to worry about Asuka and Unit-02 than herself.

"No. Secure that to coolant pipe seven."

Maya jumped at the sound of Ritsuko Akagi's voice and looked around to see her boss walking down one of the catwalks, a laptop and several binders full of papers tucked under an arm. Her normally white lab coat was dirty, her clothes wrinkled and she looked as if she'd been running on caffeine and stimulants for the last week.

"How's it going?" Ritsuko asked, dropping onto a nearby computer terminal.

"So far so good, Ma'am. Repairs are mostly finished," Maya said, trying hard not to let her apprehension leak into her voice and failing to meet Ritsuko's gaze for fear her resolve would disappear. "We should be ready for tomorrow."

"Good." Ritsuko closed her eyes wearily and leaned back on the chair, rubbing her temple.

"Ma'am?"

"What?" Ritsuko said grumpily.

"I've been wondering," Maya started after taking a deep breath. "If the objective is to shelve Unit-02, then why bother with another activation? I mean, we are not going to use it again, are we?"

This was an issue Hyuga had first brought up a few days ago during a staff meeting. If, he reasoned, they were to lock Unit-02 away for good because they didn't understand what was wrong with it, why burden Asuka any further by putting her through another activation? After all, failing to diagnose and correct Unit-02's technical problems was their responsibility. Asuka, for all her talent and skill, was still just its pilot, and having her back in the Eva under these conditions was potentially reckless. Maybe even cruel.

"Maya," Ritsuko said finally, her tone that of someone exerting a great deal of patience. "We can't just put it away without trying to understand the problem. What if there is another emergency and we need to activate it? If we leave things as they are, we would just as likely be committing suicide."

"I understand that," Maya said. "But we can run diagnostics through software. We don't need to have a full activation."

"The diagnostics software we will be using needs access to the entire system, including the A-10 links from the pilot in order to ascertain possible feedback. Therefore, the pilot must be connected because there is no other way to simulate those links." Ritsuko opened her eyes and leaned forwards in her chair. "Trust me, we are taking every precaution."

Maya was not entirely convinced. Measuring feedback could be done in three different ways—at the source through the pilot's neural connectors, en route through the connection, and at the destination inside the Eva. Having the system fully synced meant they could analyze all three and cross-reference data.

But A-10 data processing did not need all three points. Because it didn't change in transit, which was effectively like trying to alter a phone signal over a copper cable with your mind, only one point was needed. Calculating synch-ratios, obviously, required all three, but that was not diagnostics. In fact, the A-10 link was almost exclusively an functional issue, since it directly related to the pilot's ability to operate the Eva and nothing else. Whatever problem Unit-02 had, the A-10 link was most certainly not it.

The only other scenario Maya could think of where the pilot's link was needed was if Ritsuko intended to analyze the originator signal coming from Asuka herself or, conversely, the destination on her end—meaning her neural connectors and, ultimately, inside her head. And that would mean she believed the problem was Asuka.

Maya knew pushing this issue any further would only irritate the doctor, and that was the last thing she wanted to do right now with her own neck already on the chopping block. And it was not like Ritsuko needed to explain what she was doing to any of them so long as the Commander signed the orders. She never had.

"What about Unit-02's operating system?" Ritsuko asked, looking at one of the computers—the one with the memory module. A flash crossed her eyes. "What is that?"

Suddenly, Maya felt her stomach knotting up. "It's … ah—it's…"

"Forget it." Ritsuko waved her hand dismissively. "Next time you do a memory dump let me know, okay?"

"Yes Ma'am," Maya murmured, hoping her nervousness didn't show. She always got nervous when she lied. "Sorry. I didn't think you'd have a problem with it. I figured I'd get a jump on it.

Ritsuko seemed strangely understanding. "Don't worry about it," she said, eyes now fixed squarely on Maya, which made the younger girl feel uncomfortable. "Tell me, what about the operating system?"

"It's … good," Maya said, breathing a sigh of relief. "It's perfect, actually. All the queries came back just the way MAGI expected them. We shouldn't have any problems on that end."

"I would expect nothing less." Ritsuko stood up and flexed her shoulders to shake off some of the fatigue. "We are using my mother's algorithms."

Ritsuko picked up her laptop and folders from the place she had set them on the console. "Keep me posted. Whatever you do, make sure we are ready to go tomorrow. Minor problems can be fixed later. When you are done here, take your equipment over to Unit-01."

Maya blinked in surprise. "Unit-01?" she said, puzzled. "Will we be activating it as well?"

"As per the Commander's orders," Ritsuko said. "Shouldn't be too much of a problem."

Again Maya was confused. "No, Ma'am. But with all the resources dedicated to Unit-02 already—"

"Don't argue with me, Maya," Ritsuko said sternly, like someone talking to know-it-all student. "Just follow orders. You'll have time to worry about resources when this is done. I'll give you first pick on what assignment you want."

As her boss walked away, Maya looked at the memory module and hoped the stupid thing would hurry the hell up before she had a nervous breakdown, or was caught. Thankfully Ritsuko had somehow missed it, and that was saying something of a woman with an incredible eye for details.

She must really be tired, Maya thought, sinking back on her chair, her body feeling like it was made of rubber.

And now she had Unit-01 to add to the pile. There were too many things about this situation she didn't like already. Far too many. But only one of them was going to get her killed for sure. She may not like activating Unit-02 for barely justifiable reasons, and activating Unit-01 now just didn't make sense, but the little module ran her life.

A bullet to the head was much worse than a reprimand, even from Ritsuko Akagi.

* * *

Shinji didn't really hear what was being said in lecture, and he didn't care to. He sat with his elbows propped up on his desk and expression of boredom on his face. The old geezer at the front of the classroom was probably droning on about when they used to have seasons, or when you could buy a small car for a 100-yen, or some other useless detail with no educational value.

By the time the bell rang for recess, Shinji's mind was hovering somewhere in the misty drowsiness that preceded full-blown sleep. He was not the only one by the looks of it—just about everyone but Hikari seemed to have fallen off the wagon and had that glassy-eyed look that indicated their minds were somewhere far way. Others, Asuka included, had laid their heads down on their desks.

"Uh?" Shinji shook himself awake as Kensuke nudged him in the arm, then looked at his friend. "What?"

"Lets go outside." Kensuke chanced a glimpse at the teacher as the old man left the classroom. "Geez, this guy is worse that our old teacher. Where do you suppose they find these fossils anyway?"

Shinji shrugged, but did not get a chance for a reply. Hikari, having overheard them, was clearly not willing to let such disrespect to authority slide. "Kensuke Aida!" she said in her official voice, coming to stand in front of them. "That is no way to talk about your elders. We should look up to them!"

Kensuke snickered. "Yeah, in a museum."

Whether Hikari found this reply as amusing as Shinji and Kensuke did, they would never find out. Hikari's attention became suddenly fixed on Asuka's sleeping form, her face flushed with concern. The last time she saw Asuka it had not been pleasant. "Shinji, is she ... doing okay?"

"She's not sleeping very well." Shinji got up and walked over to the redhead. Asuka was probably a little too old for needing naps, but given how much trouble she had at night it was understandable. Boring lectures aside. "Hey, Asuka..." He shook her gently, just hard enough to wake her without startling her.

She made soft mewling noise that sounded like a question.

"It's recess," Shinji said as drowsy blue orbs appeared below heavy eyelids. "You wanna grab our lunches and go outside?"

Asuka rubbed sleep from her eyes with the back of a hand as she straightened up. She looked awfully tired. "Yeah, sure."

They retrieved their bento boxes from within their desks and together headed down the hall. Shinji had prepared them, of course. Food was one of the pleasures he enjoyed the most. The good thing about packing his own lunch was that after a while school cafeteria food and vending machine snacks got kind of old and started tasting the same.

This way was much better, and it was better for Asuka as well since he knew she liked his cooking. Shinji looked back at the redhead—seeing her in a normal setting, talking with Hikari like the best friends they were, was a huge boost to his morale. He had forgotten how sociable she could be when she was in the mood, which was not often nowadays.

Perhaps it had been a good idea to bring her with him to school; Asuka could use a little bit of normalcy. Hikari seemed determined to give her just that by being as friendly as she could, the awkwardness of their dinner forgotten.

None of them was paying much attention as they rounded a corner and ran straight into Rei Ayanami.

She wore her usual uniform despite not having shown up for class. Her face was blank in a way that suited her pleasantly soft features, and she seemed as if she she had simply drifted into their path like a cloud in the sky pushed by a quiet breeze.

Strangely, Shinji thought it was like meeting a loved one whom he hadn't seen in a long time. He couldn't quite distinguish the feeling, faint as it was. From the moment he'd met Rei, there had been something about her that always seemed strange to him—not bad, just strange. As their relationship developed, however, he had come to care for her. She'd become the gentle counterpoint to his jarring emotions and for a time he thought he might love her.

And then she died, Shinji reminded himself. She died and he met this girl who was everything his Rei was. He'd like to believe that, except she wasn't even the same person, the same heart or the same mind. She was the same in image only, nothing else.

"I need to speak with Ikari alone," Rei said flatly, not looking at anyone but Shinji.

"Ayanami—" Hikari started but couldn't finish.

"Get lost, Wondergirl," Asuka growled.

Rei did not even blink, or made any other gesture that would indicate she'd heard her. "I need to speak with Ikari alone," she repeated just as calmly as before. "Please. It is important."

Asuka stepped forward, placing herself between Shinji and Rei, holding out her arms like a barrier, her eyes blazing with anger. "And I told you to get lost!"

Shinji did not think Asuka's hostile tone was necessary. After all, he himself had once made a habit of turning to Rei when in need of someone to talk to. "It's okay, Asuka."

"No, it's not okay!" Asuka glared at him over her shoulder. "Don't you see? She wants to have you back!"

And then it clicked.

"No way!" Shinji yelled in surprise, realizing why Asuka was so upset. "Rei and I have always been just friends!"

"I do not understand," Rei said, her face blank.

"Like hell you don't!" Asuka said gruffly, stepping up. She looked ready to strike Rei, prompting Shinji to slip around to her side just in case he had to stand between them. "You may fool the idiot, Wondergirl, but you don't fool me. You are jealous that he chose me over you. Admit it—it pisses you off and you want him back!"

She was being paranoid, Shinji thought. He was annoyed that she was being so horrible to Rei, but after all that had happened to bring the two of them together he couldn't really blame her—she was just protecting what she considered her own, which now included him.

Through no fault of her own, Rei had been the cause of the last major fight between him and Asuka. Shinji did not want a repeat of that horrible incident, and he reached a hand towards the redhead. "Asuka, please, how would she even know about—"

"Oh," Rei's eyes widened slightly in comprehension. "Yes, you are correct. I am jealous."

Shinji's head whipped back to her; a knot began to form in his stomach as sudden, squirming doubt filled his heart. Had he been wrong? Had Rei Ayanami seen him as more than he'd thought? It was possible—no, more than possible. For a long time he was much closer to her than to Asuka.

"You are?"

"See? I told you." Asuka folded her arms smugly across her chest. "You are such an idiot."

"Yes." Rei took her eyes from Shinji and fixed them squarely on Asuka. "You have found something I can never have. You share a bond I cannot yet understand. I want to understand, and so I need to try. But you are wrong in thinking I want to take it from you. If it is happiness you have found, then I am happy for you, even if in the end such bonds can only lead to hurt."

Shinji's heart skipped a beat.

It had to be a coincidence. There was no way Rei could have known about his conversation with Asuka in the train—or of how much the issue of hurting one another had come up lately. Asuka noticed it too. The confident smugness of having forced Rei to admit her feelings just a second ago disappeared and was replaced by the same insecurity Shinji had seen on her that morning.

Even Kensuke and Hikari could tell something was amiss. The Class Rep moved close to her friend, slipping an arm around Asuka's, tilting her head towards her in sympathy.

Completely unaware that she had just said exactly the wrong thing to Asuka, Rei returned her red-eyed gaze to Shinji. "I need to speak with you alone," she repeated, this time without any objections from the redhead, who suddenly seemed to have lost the desire for confrontation. "Please."

"Don't worry, we'll save you some food," Hikari said, suspiciously cheerful, taking his bento box and waving him off while simultaneously pulling Asuka away.

Shinji started to follow Rei but before he'd taken more a few steps he turned back to the stunned Second Child. Coincidence or not, the words had fallen on her like a hammer. He wondered if he should explain that Rei would never say anything to upset her on purpose.

"I'll meet you guys outside, okay?" He tried to sound casual. "Asuka?"

"Uh?" Asuka blinked herself back to reality and tightened her face. "Yeah. Fine. Whatever."

The boy's bathroom down the hall was Rei's choice of meeting place. A large majority of the students hung out outside or in the classrooms during recess so it was empty most of the time. Shinji had the impression none of the boys would mind having Rei in there, and he knew she couldn't have cared less. She was like that.

He was just glad she hadn't chosen the girl's bathroom. That would have been awkward for him. Not that this wasn't, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about being called a pervert by screeching girls.

"So, um," Shinji started as they stood opposite each other in front of the sinks, "what's up?"

"How do you feel about Commander Ikari?" Rei asked bluntly.

Shinji gulped, his stomach sinking. Suddenly he felt like he didn't want to be here with her, least of all talking about him. "F-Father?" he managed to stutter.

Rei nodded, ignoring his hesitation. "Yes, your father," she repeated. "How do you feel about him?"

How indeed? Shinji had seen so little of the man lately that he seemed to have pushed him completely out of his life. There was a time when he would have done anything for the approval of his father, when even the most simple compliment would have made him feel proud and swelled his heart. But then his father, through the dummy system, had forced him to hurt Toji. And that was that; after that day Shinji could just as easily not have had a father.

That didn't mean Shinji no longer wanted his approval. But it did mean, however, that any idea of the two of them sharing a true father-son relationship was finished. Not that they ever had such a thing, but there had been hope.

Realizing that Rei was waiting for him to say something, Shinji shook his head. "I don't know."

Rei frowned. "How is that possible?" she asked. "He is your father."

She seemed honestly curious, and that was the only thing keeping Shinji from walking out. Like with Asuka a moment before, he knew Rei would not dig up a subject that he found painful without a good reason, whatever that might be.

Shinji fidgeted, dropping his gaze to the tiled floor between them, slouching his shoulders. "Um... well, it's not that simple."

"But he is your father."

Shinji shook his head again, more firmly this time. "You keep saying that but the truth is that he isn't. He might be my father because he married my mother and we might be related, but ..." he realized how much it hurt mid-sentence and trailed off, trying to find words to match the ache inside his chest. "But … he's never acted like a father to me."

He expected Rei not to know when to stop asking questions, to keep going until she had unwittingly reduced him to tears. Thus, he was surprised when she fell silent. Her red eyes suddenly had a soothing kindness about them that he had missed. Her face had softened. "Rei?"

"I do not wish to cause you pain," she said softly. "But I need to understand. Ever since I was created I have lived to serve your father. I was meant to do as he wished me to do, and fulfill the purpose he had planned for me. I was not meant to think for myself, or live for myself, or have a heart for myself. But I am myself. I cannot trust his answers any longer, and so I must find my own."

A strange feeling erupted in Shinji's chest. The same feeling he had when he knew Asuka wanted something from him but he didn't know what. "Why ask me?"

"I trust you."

Her obvious sincerity made Shinji feel better. "Sorry, but I'm just not good at this sort of thing, and I don't think I'll ever be." He sighed. "Asuka is like this some times too, so I guess I'm the one with the problem."

Rei wasn't looking at him anymore, instead casting her tranquil ruby eyes on her reflection in one of the bathroom mirrors beside her. "Do you understand her?"

Shinji was not much more comfortable with this new subject than the previous one. Rei had a knack for being painfully direct and she would expect a direct answer, even if he wasn't sure what the answer was. "No ... well, yes and no," he said hesitantly. "I mean, I wish I did, but I don't think I have to. Or maybe that's just because I can't."

"I am sorry I cannot be closer to her," Rei said, sounding apologetic.

"Don't be," Shinji replied. He felt weird talking about the redhead behind her back like this, so he kept it short. "Asuka's just very hard to get along with."

Rei's head dipped slightly. "That is not an excuse for my failure."

"It's not your fault." Shinji took a step towards her, catching himself in the mirror for a moment—a young brown-haired, blue eyed boy looking concerned. "Rei, I know what she said to you. I know she said she hated you and wanted you to die. After that how are you supposed to be close to anyone?"

"You did it," she pointed out. "Or would you rather the two of you had stayed apart?"

The thought of losing Asuka was enough to make him feel like he couldn't breathe, like a hole had opened in chest and swallowed his heart. "No," he said firmly. "I guess ... but me and Asuka have a different relationship. It's not like anything else."

"But it is proof that you can care for someone even if you do not like how they are, or if you do not understand them," Rei said. "In that case, is she really that different from your father?"

Shinji was almost angry that she would make that comparison. "No, it's very different. I didn't really know anything about Asuka. I thought she just wanted to hurt me, like Father. But now when Asuka yells at me ..." he took a deep breath, fighting the onrushing emotion. "Even when she yells at me I can tell she's in pain. When she insults me it's almost like she's saying those things to herself. And I don't want her to. I used to think she wanted to be left alone because that's what I would want." He shook his head miserably. "I just couldn't understand how hurt she really was."

He reached up a hand to his face, wiping the tears that had come to his eyes before they could be shed, and bit back a sniffle. "But my father … there's nothing there. Nothing to relate to. I wish there were but there isn't. I spent so much time wanting him to care. Now I know that will never happen, and I need to make peace with that."

Despite Shinji's emotional words, Rei remained neutral and unmoved. He knew better than to be bothered—she was just being herself. "Why?"

"Because I know that's what I need to do."

Rei closed her eyes as he spoke. "You just know?"

"Yeah." Shinji nodded as assertively as he knew how. "It's like something inside. And I need to do it for myself if I want to be happy, and I guess that means I need to do it for Asuka, too."

Rei was thoughtfully silent for a long time. "I see," she finally said. "Thank you for your honesty."

She turned and began heading back to the bathroom entrance, her muted footsteps barely audible even in the empty space. In typical fashion she gave no indication that their conversation had affected her in the slightest, which left Shinji even more confused as he still had no idea what it had all been about, nor what it was Rei wanted from him in the first place.

On impulse, Shinji rushed after her. "Rei, wait." Rei stopped and turned to him. "We haven't seen each each other a lot lately," he said. "I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I really like talking to you, just not about my father. Um, I don't think Asuka will like it, but would you like to join us for lunch?"

"I already have an appointment," Rei said, shaking her head slightly.

"With my father?" Shinji asked morosely. "Why do you keep—"

"With Keiko Nagara."

Shinji felt his eyes widening in disbelief. "What? But she's … isn't she?"

Rei's lips upturned into a tiny, barely-there smile. "She is hurt, but she is going to survive."

The breath left his lungs so suddenly in a gasp of relief that Shinji thought he would faint. He grabbed his shirt right above his heart. Compared to such good news, the fact that Rei was smiling hardly registered. "Rei, I could so hug you right now."

"I do not think the Second would take very kindly to that," Rei replied flatly, his sudden humor completely lost on her.

"I would hug her too."

* * *

"Keiko should have never been put into that position—stupid machine!" Misato kicked the vending machine that had taken her money for what had to be the tenth time in as many seconds. "Dammit! Even the vending machines are corrupt in this day-and-age."

"It did you a favor. That stuff will kill you, Major," Nakayima said, handing back the laptop Misato had entrusted him with when she started attacking the machine. "Anyway, definitely nobody expected this to happen. There wasn't much anyone could do about it, right?"

Misato gave him a cynical frown. "Believe that if you want, but in this place things like this happen because people are worth less than machinery," she said. "Keiko was not ready for combat; she shouldn't have been out there in the first place. And Asuka—" she sighed "—well, don't even get me started on that."

She tucked the laptop under one arm and headed for the nearby elevator. There were too many things that needed doing for her to have the luxury of standing around chatting. None of those things would get done, however, because she would spent most of the afternoon going through the laptop—Hyuga's laptop with the hacked access codes to the MAGI.

As she left, Nakayima fell into step behind her, saying, "That's more or less the reason I wanted to see you. When I saw Keiko this morning something happened."

"Well, yeah, sure. She's out of the coma, isn't she?" The elevator door closed behind them and Misato hit the button for her floor, watching the numbers begin to tick away indicating their descent.

"I meant something happened to me." Nakayima clarified.

Misato turned a curious eyebrow at him. "Really?"

"I'm going to resign my commission," he said. "And I want to take Miko and Keiko with me."

"Kidnapping is still a crime, just so you know."

Nakayima was not amused. "I'm serious, Major."

"Sorry." Misato looked away, a little embarrassed at her own lack of sympathy. She focused once again on the floor numbers and wondered grimly when she had turned into such a Ritsuko-like harpy. "Does Miko want to leave?"

"I don't know yet."

Her brows plunged into a scowl. "Don't you think you should run this by her?" Misato said. "I don't see that she would want to go, though. Keiko is getting some of the best medical care in the world here. And then there's the issue of your employer. You said so yourself."

"That's the thing ... " Nakayima hesitated. "I've gotten around. I know people and, in such an extreme circumstance, I suppose I can find a way out if I try hard enough. And if I have something to trade with. I placed a phone call this morning to—"

Misato did not need to hear anything more. "Whatever it is, the answer is no." Her frown turned into a glare almost instantly. "Absolutely not."

"But you don't even know—"

Misato turned around and faced him straight on, her shoulders tensed, her face hard like a mask carved out of stone. His dark eyes peered into hers, and she noticed for the first time that they looked different than she remembered. Kaji had always been rather unkempt, letting his hair grown long, neglecting to shave, or wearing a wrinkled shirt—completely opposite of the man standing in front of her. And yet, for a brief second she thought she saw a little of Kaji in his eyes.

But she didn't let that stop her.

"You are obviously here because you want something from me," she said acidly. "And obviously you want to use this something to make some kind of deal—some kind of trade—with these 'people'. Am I correct so far?" Nakayima nodded. "Good. So, whatever it is you want, the answer is no. I have enough to deal with already without having to mess around with your spy buddies."

Nakayima raised a hand to ward off her aggression. "But they just want to talk to you."

"That's what they all say. No. You want to quit, find someone else to bargain with. I will not put myself into such a dangerous, not to mention stupid, position." Misato took a step forward, closing the distance between them and bringing her face to within inches of his. "Unlike you, I have other people—children—to think about."

"They are not your children."

The words had hardly left his mouth when Misato raised her hand and slapped him across the face.

Nakayima backed away, rubbing the spot where her hand had landed as she turned her back to him and folded her arms, fuming. The nerve on this bastard, she thought. First he wants to use her like a tool and then to insinuate that—that what? He was right. Shinji and Asuka were not her children, not even family.

"I shouldn't have said that, I know," he said by way of an apology. "I'm sorry. Look, I know you care a lot about the children. But I care about Miko and Keiko too. What happened this morning... "

"Being selfish doesn't mean you care," Misato spat. "I learned that a long time ago. You are a grown man, it's time you learned it too."

He shook his head. "I don't intend to be selfish."

"Your intentions might be good, but you haven't even thought about what Miko wants—only what you want, and you act accordingly. That is not just selfish, it's repulsive. And what about Keiko? She's the innocent here. Did you think about her at all? It's her life. Her future. She has a far greater right to enjoy those things than a broken spy running away from guilt."

The elevator door opened with an electronic ping.

"Please, what else am I supposed to do?" He yelled at her as she marched off towards her office, leaving him behind. "My conscience will not let me sit here an watch them suffer any more!"

Misato ignored him, determined not to listen to anything he might have to say just in case he might find the right words to dissolve her anger. He was not a bad man, that she knew. But even good people could some times make questionable choices. This was one of them. Very questionable.

* * *

Rei pressed her hand against the armored glass window overlooking the test cage were Unit-02 was held. Misato noticed her and came to stand beside her, placing her own hand gently on the blue-haired girl's shoulder and looking at the Evangelion below.

Despite repeated calls and a message on her answering machine, the NERV Major had ignored Nakayima entirely since their heated exchange yesterday. She needed to focus on what was truly important—and that, right now, was Asuka.

All preparations had been completed and the entry plug was in position, half inserted into its jack on the spot were the motionless giant's spine met the back of its skull, the access hatch opened and awaiting the pilot. The LCL had been drained, leaving a huge, empty box of shimmering metal and concrete. The restraints bolts that attached Unit-02 to its berth were still in place, locking it down for safety. Nobody wanted to take any chances.

"You know, Rei, at least you don't have to do this anymore," Misato said. She felt a hint of sadness tug at her; after today, Asuka wouldn't have to do this either. Unit-02 would be mothballed and she would be cast aside. Of course, no one had told her. This time, however, Misato was determined to be there for her. Under no circumstances was she going to let the young redhead despair like she had before.

"I do not miss it," Rei said. "I have a different purpose."

"That's very mature." Misato's eyes fixed on Asuka's slender plugsuited form as she came out of the ready room and walked down the gantry towards Unit-02. Her gait was awkward, not the usual long, purposeful strides but much slower and deliberate, almost to the point of being hesitant.

Her head was down, shoulders slumped. Without the mane of golden-red hair, Misato would not believe this was the same Second Child she had come to know.

When Asuka reached the small group of technicians gathered around the entry-plug's access platform, Misato saw one of them move to her and say something. Asuka's body language gave no indication as to what the message was, but Misato could guess by the sour look on the technicians face that it probably wasn't very pleasant.

That made Misato grit her teeth. "There is an emergency phone on that console, right?" she asked nobody in particular.

"Yes," Hyuga replied, and guessed what she meant to ask next. "I'll patch your through if you want."

"Please," Misato said. She didn't hear the phone ring but saw one of the technicians pick it up. After a quick exchange with Hyuga, the phone was passed on to Asuka. Misato moved around behind his console and took he headset he offered her.

"What?" Asuka said, her voice a scratchy low drawl.

"I just wanted to say good luck," Misato said, fighting the urge to tell her the truth. I'm sorry, Asuka, she thought. It will just hurt you more.

Asuka took a moment to answer. "I've done this a hundred times. There's no need to wish me luck. I'll be fine."

"Asuka..." Misato closed her eyes and felt for the right words in the darkness. "I don't think I have ever told you this, and if I have it's not been often enough, but I want you to know that I've always been so proud of you. That I wish you the best. And that when this is over I will be there for you."

Another moment of hesitation followed, "Misato," Asuka sounded suspicions. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Misato shook her head—it was one thing to keep the truth from Asuka and another to flat out lie to her. "Nevermind. I'll tell you when it's over, okay?"

Had Asuka been her normal self, Misato had no doubt she would have demanded to know. But she didn't even seem willing to press the issue.

After signing off, Misato turned her attention to Ritsuko, who stood beside Haruna on one of the consoles. A dozen pairs of eager eyes, half of which she didn't know by name, stared dutifully at their assigned screens, waiting for the command. This being the first activation in a while, the control room was crowded, the soft hum of machinery lingering in the silence. "Are we ready?"

The room had all the good cheer of an execution, and given the hostile attitude towards Asuka that had settled over Central Dogma in the last week, Misato wondered how many of the people here just wanted to see her have something precious taken away from her.

It was not fair. None of them knew what it was like to pilot an Eva; the toll it had on its pilots. Misato had seen it first hand, but even she didn't fully understand it and she never would. That was no reason to scorn Asuka any more than her abrasive character was. Understanding her was not a requirement of caring for her.

"Affirmative," came Ritsuko's reply. As the Chief Scientist, the activation test was her responsibility, so she would be calling out the commands. Misato, as Asuka's guardian, was simply there in the interest of the pilot. "Confirm pilot is in place. Clear the cage."

"Pilot is in place," Hyuga confirmed. "Cage is clear."

Ritsuko nodded. "Initiate primary contact." she turned to Hyuga. "Monitor plug depth and make sure safety parameters are not exceeded. We need a clean activation if we hope to gain any useable data."

"Primary contact initiated," Haruna reported, her fingers dancing over her console.

"Main power," Ritsuko continued.

"Main power is on. Voltage status is nominal." This time it was Shigeru Aoba who responded.

Misato nodded. "And Asuka?"

"Synchro-graph is level," Hyuga said. "Life signs normal. She's doing fine."

"Initialize Second Phase," Ritsuko ordered, looking at the information streaming through Haruna's screen. "Begin feeding the diagnosis software as soon as all your connections are set."

"Second Phase—err..." Haruna looked over her shoulder at Ritsuko and both women frowned in confusion. "Ma'am?"

"What?" Misato moved away from Hyuga's console and behind Haruna, taking her other shoulder opposite Ritsuko. Leaning over she noticed that among the stacks of information pouring into her computer screen, there was a little blank square near the top labeled 'Second Child Activation' where Asuka's pretty face should have been.

Ritsuko raised her head. "Hyuga?"

"The visual feed is down," the bespectacled operator confirmed. "I've lost all readings from inside the entry-plug as well."

"Get me a comm channel." Misato straightened, and Hyuga nodded almost immediately. Knowing Asuka could now listen to her inside the entry-plug, she called, "Asuka, can you hear me?" Nothing. "Asuka?"

"Doctor, linkage sequence has begun," somebody in the front of the room said.

"I gave no such order." Ritsuko leaned over Haruna's terminal until her face was barely a foot away from the screen, as if the close distance would add a measure of certainty. Misato glanced at the screen too. The little yellow rectangles that signified the links between Asuka and Unit-02 were fusing together and turning red.

Haruna shook her head. "60% of all nerve links connected."

Misato found herself frowning. Fortunately for her—and Asuka—Ritsuko didn't want to take any chances and so she was not surprised when she called the termination order. It was the only thing to do. Obviously, even with a week of preparation they had missed something and Unit-02 was not functioning properly.

The sense of relief did not last.

"Ah, Unit-02..." Aoba said, sounding confused. "Link connection sequence is continuing."

"That's not possible," Haruna said. "I have a receipt for the termination signal—it wasn't rejected."

Misato and Ritsuko looked at her screen. Sure enough, she had a multitude of messages reading 'Signal Received' and flashing yellow. Again Ritsuko followed procedure. "Eject the power plug."

The confirmation came within a second of the order. "Ejected. One minute of—"

"All nerve links are now connected," Aoba said.

"No reading on synch or harmonics," Hyuga said, raising his hands from his keyboard. "I've got nothing."

Haruna's screen was now flashing an angry red. Ritsuko shook her head. "Override security protocols and re-transmit termination signal. And attach a diagnosis packet."

And then the ground shook—more of an impact shock than an earthquake, as if something very strong had yanked the entire room in one direction. A terrible noise, that horrible and distinct scream of straining metal, came from somewhere outside.

The emergency alarm came to life. The room filled with the sharp wail, plunging into flashing red lighting. As if of one mind, every occupant looked towards the window and the Evangelion in the space beyond. It was still there, still strapped down to its berth by the heavy locks, but it was no longer motionless. The massive red bulk pitched forward, struggling against the looks holding it in place.

Misato ran towards the window, her heart hammering in her chest as she pressed her body against the glass. "Ritsuko, what's going on?"

Unit-02 turned its shoulders, and the locks wailed under the stress placed on them by its giant mass. It quickly became too much. The locks snapped, shooting across the cage like projectiles and bouncing off the walls. The Eva roared, a deep grumble of some primordial hunger, cradling its armored head in its hands, arching its back and twisting in such a way that made Misato wonder if it could feel pain like herself.

Or its pilot.

"Ritsuko?" Misato called again, not taking her sight from the agonizing Evangelion.

But Ritsuko was far too busy to indulge her. "Hyuga, run a waveform pattern analysis!"

"Ten seconds of battery!"

Misato didn't understand. They should be trying to figure out what was happening. More importantly, they needed to stop Unit-02 and get Asuka out. She knew that, even with all that was going, a waveform pattern was only good for determining one thing.

No.

Suddenly, Misato felt cold with horror. Unit-02 was … it couldn't be.

"Five seconds!"

"I have lost telemetry!" Hyuga called above the dim. As he looked up from his screen it was Misato's gaze he met. "The entry-plug is dark. I've lost all data."

His call was soon echoed by every technician in the room as their computer screens flashed into noise and static. They turned to Ritsuko, hoping, praying for an answer from that famous polymath intellect of hers. More than one of them having seen her perform similarly brilliant feats in tight spots before. But she seemed taken aback and as stunned as the rest, muttering under her breath, "It doesn't want us to know. It's shutting us out right from the start."

Misato frowned, despite her mounting sense of dread. "What doesn't want us to know?"

"Zero!" Aoba called suddenly. "Power is out. Unit-02 is not stopping."

"Ritsuko?"

As if a spell had been broken, the blonde doctor shook her head. "Do we have a pattern?"

"Negative," Aoba said. "We have no information whatsoever. We might as well be completely blind."

The next time she spoke, Ritsuko sounded determined. "Sever all logical links between Unit-02 and us. Isolate it in every way you can think off. I want our communications scrambled, highest encryption possible. Flood the cage with Bakelite. All personnel to Level One alert." She looked at Misato "Major Katsuragi?"

Misato didn't want to hear the words but Ritsuko said them anyway, "Major Katsuragi, we are abandoning Unit-02 and declaring an emergency. This is now designated as a combat operation."

"What about Asuka?" Misato asked numbly, unable to keep her fear for the girl from showing in her voice. She thought she was going to be sick. Her hand twitched at her side, ready to be brought to her mouth.

Ritsuko shook her head slowly and gave Misato a look of sympathy that only served to convince the Major of how badly things had gone. "We have to work on the assumption that she's lost. And if we don't do something we will be joining her very shortly."

Misato stared, and it took all she had to keep herself under control, feeling like a parent who had just been told her child had died. That was how much Asuka meant to her. Like Shinji, she was her family.

And she couldn't just accept that she was gone. Misato clenched her fists, letting her nails dig into her palms. She wasn't just going to let Asuka go, but there was nothing else she could do; only one person who could help her now. She knew what she had to do and she didn't give a damn if Ritsuko—

"I am issuing you full authority," Ristuko said, as if reading her mind.

It did not strike Misato as strange that she would agree to what she had previously denied her the authority to do—activating Unit-01 and sending it into combat; nor that Unit-01 was already out of stasis and prepped for its scheduled activation, which was supposed to follow Unit-02's test. None of these things mattered.

Asuka mattered.

"Get Maya," Misato ordered, a new determination gathering the pieces of her broken heart and welding them together. "Activate Unit-01. Emergency procedure."

Beside her, Rei still had her hand on the glass.

* * *

A haze hung over everything, casting shapes and colors as if seen through a foggy lens.

Asuka stood in the middle of a brightly lit hallway, surrounded by a bustling crowd of students walking to and from to their classrooms, chatting animatedly with each other. Stripped of even her neural connectors, her long golden-red hair fell freely about her shoulders, her bare feet and pale nakedness in stark contrast to the uniformed figures moving around her.

None of the students seemed able to notice her, looking right through her even as they passed her by on both sides, and for this she was thankful. It was also how she knew it couldn't be real. But real or not, Asuka's attention quickly became fixed on a familiar figure.

On the opposite end of the hallway, amidst the hubbub of the crowd, a slender redheaded girl had just opened her locker and a cascade of envelopes had come tumbling out, piling messily on the ground in front of her. The girl frowned and stomped on the envelopes in a fit of anger.

Asuka remembered this: all through her first weeks of school she had received a deluge of love letters, some going into explicit detail about what the boys wanted to do with her. If she had known who was sending what she would have made sure they wouldn't be able to write anything for a month. And yet there was one boy whose letter she would have welcomed, if only he had the courage to give one to her.

Then came a voice from behind her.

"They do not see you. Not the real you. They see an object—a thing they would rather use than understand."

Asuka glanced over her shoulder and saw herself—a much younger version of herself—wearing the same black dress she had worn at her mother's funeral. She was holding onto the stuffed toy her stepmother had gifted her. Even at that young age she had known it was a thinly disguised attempt to purchase her affection; she promptly destroyed it. A sudden shiver ran down her spine.

The younger Asuka had no face, deep shadows falling where her features should have been, and she had four glowing orbs instead of eyes, arrayed in the same configuration as Unit-02's.

"Human beings are strange creatures. Of all the animals in this world they are the only ones responsible for their own misery," her younger self said in a voice lacking of all emotion. "And of all the animals, the only ones with a pathological need for affection."

Asuka let her head drop. Determined not to let the anger she felt inside involuntarily spill out in a screaming fit, she wrapped an arm around her abdomen as if to hold herself together.

"These two things are constants of humanity," the other girl continued. "They are engineered into your brain to overcome the impulses of instinct so that you can claim to be above simpler creatures when you should envy them."

"What do you want?" Asuka asked.

Her younger self tilted her head. "I want to do what nobody can. I want to understand you."

Asuka scowled at it—for she was now sure this was an it. "What are you?"

"I am you and I am everyone else."

"I know who I am!" Asuka spat angrily, narrowing her eyes. It made her furious that this thing, this creature or whatever it was inside her head, would want to understand her as if it intended to help her somehow. Asuka knew nothing about it, and yet she knew that helping was not its nature.

"Nobody knows you, least of all yourself," it said. "You used to think you were an Eva pilot—"

"I am!"

"You used to think you were strong. You used to think you would never cry. You used to think—"

"Stop it!" Asuka was shaking, her brows drawn into a hard frown that hid just how much the words were cutting into her. They weren't spoken, rather they echoed inside her head, reaching into her like a long, thin knife piercing her flesh directly into her soul and leaving behind gaping, bleeding wounds. And through these wounds, her strength and what little pride was left seeped out.

"You used to think you could be by yourself—"

"I said stop it!" Asuka brought her clenched fists up under her chin so that her arms were drawn over her chest protectively, a primal reaction to danger instead of a conscious effort to cover herself.

"Why? You are even weaker than Shinji. He can be honest with himself, but you, on the other hand, live a lie. You delude yourself into thinking he wants you, but he doesn't see the real you. He sees the hair, and the breasts, and the legs. He wants to use you like those other boys. He doesn't care to understand you. This is certain and true; beyond all falsehood."

An invisible vice closed around Asuka's heart and twisted. Agonizing tendrils of desperation coursed through her whole body. "Shinji is different than those boys—" she pointed a finger at the students walking unknowingly by them. "Shinji does care! He cares, I know he does!"

"Does he?" It sounded amused. "Why doesn't he talk to you when you have something on your mind? Why doesn't he hold you when you are feeling lonely?"

"It's not his fault!" Asuka shouted, no longer caring to hide her anguish. "He tries!"

"And it is not good enough, is it?"

Asuka could not bring herself to say it—it was simply too painful—but her answer was clearly drawn by her expression as she shook her head pitifully.

"Then why subject yourself to this thing you call love?"

"Because I love him!"

"Is that why you thought about killing yourself that night? Because you loved him? Of course not. You were in pain and afraid. You still are. I can smell it on you. I can taste it. If you allow me, I will take all these awful things away from you and you will never be alone again."

Asuka shook her head violently, sending a storm of red hair whipping around her.

Her younger self sighed. "Human beings are so stubborn."

The crowd of students filling the hall around them stopped as one, as if time itself had frozen. They turned towards Asuka, dozens of eyes staring at her and her pale, young nudity.

They were looking at her!

A shiver raked her body as sudden self-consciousness took over. Everything seemed to change. Where a second before she had been standing around being ignored in nothing but a dreamscape, now she was actually standing naked in a crowed hallway at school while complete strangers stared at her, all of her—every inch of skin, every fold of flesh, every bump, and every hair. Her very soul bared and on display.

Asuka staggered backwards, throwing an arm across her chest and a hand between her legs to cover her exposed girlhood. Within a few feet she bumped into something. Someone. Turning on her heels, she found that the students had formed a circle around her, blocking off any hope of escape further down the hall. And there were so many of them. The hallway was full, an ocean of people looking at her. Desperately, she jerked her head left and right, seeking a way out.

But even as she did, Asuka realized the futility of it. She was trapped, like a fish in a bowl.

"They see you now," the voice said behind her. "Not what you want them to see, is it? They see what you are, but not who you are. They see only flesh. Like Shinji does."

Asuka whirled back to face it, hot anger rising swiftly as if to mask her shame, tears bristling in her bright sapphire eyes. "Stop!"

"Why?"

"I don't want them to see me like this!" she bellowed in a furious but quivering voice.

"And yet you flaunt yourself in front of them. You tease them. You make them want to imagine you like this. You make them want you. And you enjoy it."

Asuka shook her head.

"Is that why you asked Shinji to stitch the hem of your skirt a few inches above your knees? Is that why you don't wear a bra at home even though you know he's bound to catch a peek? Is that why you leave your panties in with the dirty laundry for him to find instead of washing them yourself?"

This time the shiver was accompanied by an empty sensation in the pit of Asuka's stomach. "No!"

"You want him to think of you this way because you are afraid than if he doesn't, then he wouldn't think about you at all," the younger girl said. "I know because I am you. I have observed your deepest desires, your greatest fears. You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me."

"I am not a liar!"

The little girl with her form didn't even flinch. The four glowing eyes were like searchlight beams, pinning and disarming Asuka with their glare.

"I suppose it had to come to this from the start," it said. "You can't stop it. You have never been that strong. Do yourself a favor and stop trying." And she stepped up, taking Asuka's wrist in her tiny hand.

It was like being touched by a rotting corpse. There was no warmth in the touch, just a cold sense of inhumanity. Asuka tried to pull her wrists away, but the fingers wrapped around it held fast and refused to set her free. Just as she was about to open her mouth and ask to be let go, the haze became so thick she could not see anything beyond a few feet. The students vanished, the walls and the floor fell away to be replaced by another familiar sight.

She found herself standing at the door to Shinji's bedroom, her body almost glowing in the dim light, her hand still held as if she were but a little frightened child. The door was open. Inside the room she saw Shinji sitting naked at the edge of his bed. On her knees between his legs was a girl, her golden-red head bobbing frantically up and down over the Third Child's groin. She wore an oversized t-shirt and shorts but she might as well have been naked too for all the good the clothes did her dignity. A wet sucking noise filled the room.

Asuka stared with wide eyes. Then, realizing what she was seeing, took her gaze away and stared at the carpet instead. Her face tightened. She could still hear the noise, growing faster and more intense as she brought him closer to orgasm with her mouth.

"Is this what you wish?" the thing besides her said. "You make yourself into a doll for him. Certainly, it is what he wants. You know he does. But you do nothing. It is as if you think it has nothing to do with you. Except, of course, that it is your body he is defiling in his head."

Asuka bit back a reply, not trusting herself not to whimper. Shinji let out a distinctive groan, a sound she had heard several times before. She clenched her teeth—and her eyes, and her hand—as tightly as she could, turning her body away. It was still holding her hand; she couldn't run even if her feet would move.

"Does that seem like someone who could ever love you?"

Her heart sinking, Asuka shook her head. "Why … are you showing me this?"

"I am not showing you anything you don't already know," it said. "I am you, remember. Your truth is my truth. But unlike you I can see things for what they really are. I have felt your suffering. I have come to know you. If this is what you are willing to accept from him, then you deserve nothing more. Neither does anyone else. Love is merely a word, easily erased from the heart. Had you learned that from our Mama you would not be in pain."

"No!" Asuka's eyes shot open. She whipped her head around and stared furiously at the thing. "No! Don't you dare—"

Nothing. There was nothing. Asuka was suddenly being led by the hand in darkness—the darkness that seemed to filter into the wounds her younger self had opened within her, tearing at her mind and her sanity from the inside.

* * *

Unit-02 bounced off the walls, twisting its body in agony as it smashed against the cage and roaring. The test cages were solidly built, but there was only so much punishment they could take.

Already several of the metal plates that reinforced the walls had caved in where they'd been hit, crushing or exposing the concrete beneath. If Unit-02 wanted out, it was going to get out and there was nothing they could do about it. Misato could only hope Ritsuko was wrong. Whatever was happening, there was no doubt in her mind that Unit-02 was hurting. And if it was in pain, it meant Asuka...

She couldn't bear to look at it anymore. Rei, who despite the commotion was yet to move a muscle, kept her eyes on it as if expecting something to happen that she didn't want to miss.

"Misato!" Ritsuko called to her, still standing behind Haruna's station. "Maya reports Shinji is inside Unit-01."

Misato nodded. "Tell her to hurry."

The room shook violently. Misato, along with everyone who wasn't able to brace, slammed onto floor. She looked up, the wind knocked out of her lungs, as a massive blur of gleaming red crashed into the window. The thick glass shattered with a loud crack, sending a storm of sharp fragments down on her. Instinctively she curled up and raised her arms to protect her head.

"Misato!"

There was broken glass everywhere. Bracing herself and struggling to her knees, she caught sight of Rei's body lying just a few feet away. Misato had been wearing her jacket, the heavy material prevented the glass daggers from doing her harm; Rei was not so lucky. She was on her side, gasping, a large cut across her arm from which a thin sliver of glass protruded.

On her hands and knees, Misato crawled over the stricken First Child and took her in her arms. Rei winced, but didn't whimper as Misato placed her head gently on her lap, looking down at her face with a great deal of concern. "Rei, don't move."

Rei didn't and said quietly, "I am fine."

"Hyuga, Aoba-" with the help of a nearby desk, Ritsuko had pulled herself onto her feet "Go help Maya. Transfer command to the main control room. Haruna, stay here and monitor Unit-02. Do not attempt contact in any way. Everyone else evacuate. Without instruments there's nothing you can do."

"Should I brief Shinji?" Asked Hyuga, halfway out the door. "He's going to want to know what's happening."

"No," Misato said, her palms bleeding as she tried to remove the glass fragment from Rei's flesh. She was too preoccupied to notice there was no other blood on the scene. "I'll do it." She looked up at him. "I'll tell him. Patch him in when he's ready."

Unit-02 was still thrashing about. The room shook again, though much less violently than before. This time they were prepared and those who were already standing managed to hold their footing as they attempted to evacuate.

Then, like an animal surrendering to exhaustion after its final death throes, Unit-02's agony subsided and its hands dropped to its side as it raised its head and looked from side to side, four eyes burning like red suns on its face. It was slouched in a way Misato had never seen it before. Foremost among the pilots, Asuka had always been a skilled warrior, and the movements of her Eva became an extension of her own natural agility, but now Unit-02 was sluggish and clumsy.

And somehow far less human.

Rei stirred in her arms and Misato forced her gaze away from the monster beyond the shattered window. "Don't be afraid, Rei. It's going to be alright."

* * *

"Do you remember?"

In the darkness, Asuka's mind was unraveling. Images and words appeared before her, moments she wanted to forget; offering her body to Kaji the night before arriving in Japan; being left alone by Shinji when she all but invited him to tear down her walls; lying in that filthy bathtub after she had run away; standing in the hospital while the nurses talked about her behind her back; telling Shinji she hated him and him replying in kind.

"Do you remember when that Angel broke into your mind? Remember the feeling? It shone a light into your head, but it never touched you. And yet you broke under it like a porcelain doll. All the things you wanted to hide from others, and from yourself, came tumbling out. It was like losing your mother again, wasn't it? It was, in short, the summary of your existence flashing before your eyes. That Angel only showed you what you are, nothing more."

"And you, as strong as you thought you were, curled into a ball and cried. And you wanted to die because you could not deal with pain so deep. The box around your heart finally burst open and the emotion that came out was like poison. You hated it. You still hate it. And that is why you can never love him the way you wish."

The voice faded for a moment, leaving Asuka to wallow in the emptiness that the truth behind the words brought to her.

"Do you remember the only time Stupid-Shinji went to visit you at the hospital? Your body may have been sedated but your mind knows of what I speak. He didn't come for you; he came because he wanted something from you. He touched you. He used you to satisfy his own desires. Oh, yes, don't you remember? You lay there only half alive and he ripped the sheets from you, left you naked before him, and, with no regard to your heart or your mind, violated you more selfishly than any Angel ever could. And it is because of that selfishness that he can never love the way you wish him to."

"So you see, this love of yours is just a farce, a human flaw. You must be free from it and only then can you be truly, utterly happy. And I will help you. By my hand you will achieve the glory of the whole world and cast away all shadows and blindness."

The next sight that emerged from the darkness sickened her. Asuka was standing at the edge of a spotlight that encircled a mound of dirt, and at the top of the mound a gravestone had been planted like a grotesque flower.

Besides her, the thing with her younger body still had her wrist in a tight grip and was tugging her forward. She did not want to see what she knew was coming, but she had no longer the strength to resist and so allowed herself to be lead to the gravestone.

Kyoko Soryu Zeppelin.

Asuka sank to her knees as she read the name. The last time she had been here was her mother's funeral. She had never since been able to muster the courage to return like she should have. This was all that remained of the woman who had loved her unquestionably and she hadn't even come to visit her. She had tried to bury the past and in the process buried that which was dearest to her.

"I'm sorry, Mama."

"She can't hear you anymore. You closed your heart to her—abandoned that which made you special. This thing is just a marker, a physical representation of a much deeper loss." Her tormentor let go of her wrist and stood directly between Asuka and the gravestone.

Asuka tried desperately to keep under control, but once the tears began to run down her cheeks she could not stop them. She had reached the breaking point; it was only a matter of driving the final stake into her shattering heart.

"Do you remember how it felt to lose her? You didn't cry back then. Why are you crying now?"

Asuka didn't reply, her lower lip trembled uncontrollably.

"Haven't you learned? Whatever you think Stupid Shinji feels for you—whatever you think you feel for him—this is the only outcome. Death closes all. It doesn't matter what you do. You can love with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, and still you will lose him. Like you lost your mother. And then who will console you?"

A second gravestone appeared on the mound, this one bearing a different name.

Shinji Ikari

In despair, Asuka shook her head and slumped forward so that she was on her hands and knees. Her tears splashed on the earth, creating little pools. "I … want you to stop," she managed in a strangled voice. "Please, stop ... please ... stop ..."

"The wounds of the heart are the easiest to reopen and the hardest to close. But, do you want me to stop because it hurts or because you know it's the truth, or a little of both?"

Seconds stretched into minutes; minutes stretched into a lifetime—a lifetime of lonely emptiness, her lifetime.

"Be-because it hurts!" Asuka finally whimpered, shutting her eyes tightly, causing the streams of tears flowing down the sides of her face to thicken and cascade off her chin and onto the dirt beneath her. "It hurts! I want it to stop!"

Her younger self patted her on the head. "I know it hurts. Pain defines your existence. Without pain there is no life. In a way, pain is all you are. That is why I was made. It is purpose that gives everything its value, and this is my purpose. You know what that feels like, don't you?"

Asuka nodded weakly. She too had once had purpose, to pilot Eva, to protect what heaven had abandoned by using her special gifts for the good of mankind. That had been taken from her.

"It will soon be over," it said. "I will guide you down the path of splendor and my purpose will be fulfilled, and you will never again be hurt."

In her despair, Asuka wished this thing was right, and that she would never be hurt again. She had endured enough.

"Please … make it stop."

It was pleased. If it had any lips, it would have smiled. "And as all things have been created from one by the meditation of one in nothingness, so all things must return to one and to nothingness."

* * *

"NO!" Inside Unit-01, Shinji slammed his fist on his control console and glared at the floating image of Misato on his holographic HUD. "Are you crazy? I will not fight Asuka!"

"It's not Asuka. We've lost control of Unit-02. Ritsuko thinks—"

"You said everything would be fine!" Shinji barked, his temper rising almost as fast as the sense of dread that was already churning his guts like a blender and threatening to squash his heart. "You said ... you said—"

"I know I said that. But this is now. We've lost control of Unit-02. Ritsuko thinks it's an Angel."

It took all of Shinji's self-control to keep from retching. He was suddenly cold with fear; his chest felt empty, his heart still. "And ... and Asuka?"

"We don't know." Misato swallowed visibly. "You have to—"

"WHAT ABOUT ASUKA?!"

"We don't know!" Misato repeated, her voice shaking with concern and exasperation. "Sorry, but we've been cut off. Please, Shinji I know it's hard and I know it feels like Toji and Kaworu again, and I'm sorry it always comes down to you, but you have to—"

"You don't get it, do you?" Shinji groaned, almost resenting her. "This is different! I love Asuka!"

He might have as well reached across time and space and slapped her over the communication system. Her face fell through several levels of shock, and settled into open and unrestrained anguish. Shinji had never seen her dark eyes look so sad, and he knew that her reaction was genuine. "Are ... are you sure?"

"I'm sure! I won't fight her!" Shinji repeated, needing to hear himself say it. "I ... I will die, but I will not hurt Asuka. Do you understand that?"

Misato nodded grimly. "And I'm not asking you to. She means as much to me as you do. I'm asking you to fight Unit-02 and save Asuka."

"What?" Shinji frowned, a little window of hope opening in his desperation. "How?"

"Extract the entry-plug with your own hands."

He stared at her, at once resenting her for putting Asuka and himself in this position and realizing that there was nothing else do to. "But … isn't she connected?"

Before she could answer, the containment wall opposite him bulged inwards, sending a shock through the entire cage. The steel tiles that reinforced it flew off, bent or sheared; chunks of concrete fell to the ground like giant slabs of ice from a glacier.

"Shinji," Misato got his attention once more, and she seemed even more distressed. "Those are your choices. We can't do anything more on this end. I'm sorry. But whatever you choose to do, I want you to know I am proud of you, and as long as you choose with your heart, I will understand." She placed a kiss on her fingers, touched them to the screen, and signed off.

And Shinji realized she was saying goodbye.

Nothing made by man could withstand the fury of an Evangelion for long. With a hellish thunder, the containment wall collapsed in a heap of concrete and twisted metal, raising a thick cloud of dust and soot that covered the cage.

Shinji tightened his grip on the control sticks and pushed forward; Unit-01 responded accordingly, leaning into a ready position. It was close quarters here; a battle would mean no room to maneuver and no chance to help Asuka if he made a mistake. Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it right.

Unit-02 was crouching low. Four glowing eyes stared at him as the dust settled. The red armor had lost its glimmer and parts of it were dented, bashed out of shape by being rammed against the wall. It wasn't the first time he fought it; wasn't even the first time he fought it with someone he loved on the line. He thought of Kaworu and how that ended, and of Asuka—

And Unit-02 sprang towards him.

Shinji moved out of instinct and training. Just in time. Unit-02 smashed into the wall where he'd been a split second before, burying itself deep into the concrete.

This was his chance. The momentum of Unit-01's movement made it hard to stop, but Shinji managed regardless, shifting his weight in the opposite direction, making a cut on his feet and almost losing his balance on the slick steel floor made slippery by the concrete soot and settling dust. He braced against the ground and pushed himself forward—back the way he'd come, towards Unit-02 as it tried to pull away from the wall.

The force of the impact almost knocked him off his seat, but it served to smash Unit-02 deeper into the wall. Concrete rose everywhere in a cloud, so thick in the air that it was a stroke of luck that the other Eva was a vivid red.

Not wasting his time, Shinji wrapped an arm under Unit-02's slender torso as best he could and placed all his weight down on it, hoping to immobilize it. With his free hand he ripped off the armor protecting the entry-plug's jack and saw the oval end of the plug itself.

He was so close to Asuka.

Unit-02 twisted underneath him, writhing as if in pain, throwing its head back and to the side, and its neck suddenly seemed impossibly long. And Shinji found himself staring into its eyes again.

He was too close.

At first it didn't hurt as Unit-02 clamped its teeth around Unit-01's throat—it was more like the pressure of fingers. But the result was the same. Shinji couldn't breathe. Then Unit-02 clenched its jaws, and he heard the sickening sound of crunching vertebrae.

Shinji clawed at his neck. Suddenly, he had a vise closed tightly just below his chin, the pressure increasing by the second.

Struggling for his life, Shinji's strength failed and Unit-01 could no longer hold down the monster that was now attempting to rip out his windpipe. As the weight on it lifted, Unit-02 pushed its massive bulk out of the wall and turned, tightening its grip on Shinji, forcing his head back as it shoved Unit-01 hard against the wall.

Cramming his fingers into Unit-02's mouth, he tried desperately to force its jaws open, maybe just enough to allow him to kick it away without tearing apart his own throat. It wouldn't even budge; he couldn't breathe and he had no leverage. As Unit-02 put its weight on Unit-01, it became clear that he was caught.

But Unit-01 was far from helpless.

Shinji could almost feel it begging to be let loose. Urging him to relinquish his control. Maybe if it went berserk it could save him. He had to let it—no! Absolutely not! Asuka was inside Unit-02. He would not do anything to hurt her. Unit-01 would not do anything to hurt her.

Unit-01 fought him. It wanted to protect him. It wanted him to survive at any cost. It didn't understand that some things were not worth living through. Losing someone who meant so much to him was one of them. He would rather die. They would all die—the whole world if necessary. Then maybe he would get to be with Asuka again.

Please, Shinji …

Something spoke to him, the voice familiar inside his head. It sounded like—

No, he spoke back, hoping she understood his decision as Misato did. If this was to be the end, he would die knowing he had not hurt Asuka again—one promise kept out of so many broken. His arms dropped to his side, his vision blurred from the tears gathering in his eyes.

The wave of regret and loss that washed over him was not only his own. Every cubic inch of LCL inside the entry-plug seemed to become permeated with Unit-01's grief. But it stopped fighting him. It understood.

All Unit-02 had to do was twist its head and his neck would be broken, if it was too impatient to strangle him first. Its jaws clenched tighter and tighter. Shinji couldn't even scream as he felt Unit-01's vertebrae start to give. His own, crushing.

Darkness fell around him. There was only one thought in this mind now, one feeling in his heart, and he clung to both with his last breath.

I love you, Asuka …

* * *

The voice cut through the darkness like a shard of glass. Asuka recognized it immediately.

Shinji was in trouble. She didn't need to see or hear or feel this, she knew it. There had been a bond between them since the day they met on the Over the Rainbow, a bond that grew unbearable at times and eventually blossomed into love.

And to that love that she clung now, willing her tattered mind to recall the kisses she had shared with Shinji; the first was a calculated proof, not a real outpouring of emotion; but the second had been a thing of unrestrained beauty, a warm act of both physical and emotional closeness that had lifted her heart briefly above the soil of her own doubts and insecurities, the fear and hurt.

It had been a perfect moment, and perhaps because it was the most recent and the most sincere, it was this last kiss that stood out in her mind.

A little ember came to life inside of her.

"I won't let you take Shinji away from me!" she roared through bared teeth. Her fingers dug into the dirt like claws. "I will not let you hurt him!"

"Your pain is all I wish to take away."

"You will take nothing from me!"

Asuka remembered the caring look on Shinji's face when he came to her and told her he wouldn't leave her, that he would never leave her—words she never thought she would hear. She remembered climbing on top of him and lowering herself so close her breasts practically pressed against his chest; so close that she could see her own reflection in his eyes and was surprised by how mature she seemed though she was a quivering knot on the inside.

And she remembered the feeling as she leaned towards him into a breathtaking kiss.

The ember became a fire.

"I will not let you hurt Shinji!" Forcing back her tears, Asuka lifted her head, her eyes wide and furious, and pinned the thing in her shape with an unyielding stare. "He belongs to me! He makes me happy, no matter what you say. You can never understand that!"

"You silly thing. Would you rather be miserable the rest of your life?"

"Shut up!" Asuka was shaking with fury. "I don't care if it hurts. If loving means always suffering pain then I will live in pain the rest of my life. I won't let myself cower from fear anymore. I won't let it define my existence. And if it can only end in death then I will love him as strongly as I can until the day I die!"

Her younger self gestured towards the gravestone with Shinji's name. "This is the only logical outcome. You would put yourself through all that—"

The thought of love was followed by the concept of survival—for Shinji, for her better self; the instinct to make that real. Love could never be destructive enough for what she needed to do; survival, on the other hand ...

"And if I have to die today—" Asuka's arms shot forwards, her hands closing around her younger self's neck "—I'm taking you with me!"

She was surprised by the suddenness of this movement. The stuffed toy that her tormentor had been carrying all along hit the ground, and this was a sign to Asuka that it was surprised as well.

With the shrill of a clarion, her mind sprang shut over this dominating and devilish predator. She knew now that in some way this was all real for it as well as herself, even if it wasn't physical. Her subconscious weaponized, using her anger, activating the rage in all the familiar ways that had filled the void in her heart for so long. The thoughts came instantly. There was not enough time for defense at this range. There was only driving forward.

So Asuka did.

"I hate you!" She squeezed, digging into the soft flesh under her aching fingers. She was shaking so badly she thought her hands might slip and so gave all her remaining strength to keeping her grip. The thing in her stolen flesh fought back, its little hands clawing uselessly at hers. "I won't let you turn me into your doll! I won't let you inside my head!"

The haze, which had been a constant throughout her ordeal, began to fade.

"I won't let you break me!" She squeezed harder, holding her younger self at arms length, forcing the tiny squirming form onto the toes of her shoes. The darkness cracked, allowing for a beam of light to come through, falling onto the two of them with blinding intensity.

The voice she heard came through clearly, unhurried just as before. No emotion, no labor, inefficient at portraying its own total failure. "Even if you win, what will come next? More pain? More hurt? Yours and Shinji's? You cannot escape that. It is an inviolate rule of your existence."

Asuka did not waver. On the contrary, the beam of light added to her strength. Little by little the darkness dissolved into light so powerful she could no longer see what she was holding onto. But she did not need to see to feel the neck giving in under her fingers, to feel the thing's struggles becoming weaker.

"I don't care—I will kill you!"

As the light blotted out the world around her, the cold became warmth; helplessness turned to hope fueled by righteous anger. The struggling came to a stop.

And the misery and despair that had almost drowned her started to evaporate under the warm radiance.

When the light finally subsided, the haze of her mind had been swept away completely, replaced by warm rays of golden sunshine falling on a ruined house like one of many left abandoned in the city.

Broken down walls collapsed into piles of rubble, broken splinters of old wooden floors were covered in scattered pieces of ornaments, torn-up carpet, and shattered wood. Most of the ceiling was missing so that only a few beams loomed overhead like ribs, accounting for the light and revealing a clear blue sky beyond stroked by lines of white clouds.

Asuka looked down at her hands. Flexing her fingers, the feeling of the writhing neck she had been holding had already faded completely, as though it had never existed. Whatever it was, and whatever it had wanted to turn her into, it was gone now.

As she rose, Asuka noticed that she was longer naked. Instead she was clad in her yellow sundress and red shoes, and her neural connectors once again held her hair back. She looked up at the sky, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the bright sun.

She felt different, like something heavy had been taken from her. Her heart was full of the sun's tender embrace and she found herself smiling.

Then she heard the music.

Asuka turned, tracing the notes to the far corner, where the sunlight was so bright it created a shimmering golden screen, and saw there was a polished black piano at which a figure was sitting, hands dancing over the keys, face hidden by the light.

She moved closer, the dusty floorboards creaking under her feet with every step. The music was clear, enchanting and sweet, and she thought she'd heard it before but couldn't identify it.

She was barely a few paces away when the music stopped and the musician stood up. And a head of short golden-red hair emerged from the light. And Asuka stared into a face she had missed terribly for most of her young, sad life.

A loving alabaster face giving her a smile that she'd thought had been lost to her forever.

"My darling Asuka."

"Ma—ma?" Asuka choked on the word. She did not need to understand what she was seeing. She knew, as surely as it is possible for a human being to know anything. The years of suffering that had turned her childhood into a prison for her heart vanished. The sense of loneliness, which had been her eternal companion, left her.

"Mama!" Her face lit up as bright as the sun shining above them as she threw her arms around her mother. "Mama, I missed you! I missed you so much!"

Her mother wrapped her arms around Asuka, cradling her tightly in an adoring hug.

Asuka was crying openly, tears of pure joy. "Mama, where have you been? Why did you leave me?"

Her mother grasped her shoulders and pushed her back a little to gaze into her eyes, caressing Asuka's cheek with a loving hand that ignited a fire of innocent pleasure and set her heart fluttering like a butterfly. "I love you, Asuka. Always remember that. I'm glad you are here with me. But I am your past—all that is most painful in your life."

"Please don't say that. I forgive you. I love you." Once again, Asuka pressed herself against her mother, squeezing her eyes shut and tightening her embrace. "I have never stopped loving you. Even when I wanted to die, I wanted to be with you and love you."

Her mother stroked her hair consolingly. "You must move forward if you want to find happiness. You must go back to Shinji."

Asuka was surprised, but she didn't let go. "How do you—"

"Your heart is open," her mother said. "It's like a book to me. Most of the pages are black, full of anger and despair, and so much pain. But there are a few I can read, and they are beautiful, Asuka. He is written in your heart."

"But I want to be with you!" Asuka trilled in her whiniest voice.

"There was a time when I would have wanted to take you with me, more than anything."

Asuka shook her head, rubbing away her tears against her mother's gentle warmth. "Then why don't you?"

"I don't need to anymore. I understand. Nobody but yourself can make the decision to be happy; you have to make your own happiness."

Asuka moved back and looked up at her mother, her face a pout. "But—"

"Don't whine, Asuka," her mother admonished. "You were always a good girl, so do as Mama says. Promise me that you will try to be happy."

Asuka did, and that was a promise she intended to keep. Though not unlike the love she had for her mother, loving Shinji was different in that he represented the part of her that she could not accept in herself, completing what was otherwise simply half a heart. That meant he had as much right to it as she did.

Her heart belonged to him now, like it belonged to her mother and herself. And like his heart, Asuka was certain beyond any doubt, belonged to her.

She fell silent, glad to just be held by her mother in this sun-bathed reality where neither haze nor darkness could intrude. Here and now was the happiest she had ever been. And, aware that such a thing could not last, she was determined to enjoy every second to the fullest.

* * *

His eyes opened with a jolt and he was immediately assaulted by white fluorescent light. He was comfortably warm and lying on something soft and springy. It took a few seconds for him to realize he was tucked in bed, somewhere in Central Dogma. His body felt numb, as if he hadn't moved it for a long time.

Shinji blinked and the light began to give way so that could now make out the details of the ceiling. "What … what happened?" he asked nobody in particular.

As his vision slowly returned, he sat up, groaning from the effort, and rubbed the side of his aching head. He winced as further movement brought a sharp pain from his wrist, where an I.V. line had been inserted into him. Shinji looked down on himself. His plugsuit had been removed; he wore a hospital gown and was covered in sheets. Two more things became immediately apparent. One, that he had somehow survived the battle, and two, moving his head was a bad idea because his neck was very sore.

He used a hand to rub his neck, noticing it was wrapped in bandages almost all the way down to his collarbone. He was not wearing a brace, always a good sign. Since he couldn't move his head, Shinji let his eyes survey the room instead. It was large, with an observation window running along the far wall and high open ceiling.

Then the bed next to his came into focus, and a knot formed in his throat.

Asuka lay unconscious under a kind of improvised awning bolted a few inches above the bed. The contraption looked like it was made up of a thick electric blanket stretched taut over a rectangular metal frame and shielded her somewhat, but the open sides revealed a glimpse of her nude body beneath. Her head stuck out at one end, orange-red hair spilling over a pillow, and her feet at the other. Thick padded straps were fastened around her chest, wrists, knees and ankles.

The bed itself was surrounded by medical equipment, connected by large bundles of cables attached to leads on different parts of Asuka's body, including two on either temple. Several IV drips hung by her bedside, and a clear plastic mask was looped over her nose and mouth, fogging in time with her slow breathing. The plastic bag of yellow liquid at the foot of the bed indicated the presence of a catheter and, more worryingly, that she had been out for quite a while.

The electronic heartbeat of the EKG was the only sound in the room, while an EEG nearby recorded Asuka's brain activity as multiple lines on a monitor. Yet despite all these instruments, Shinji could not tell how badly she was hurt. All that equipment, the restraints … the doctors must have thought she was contaminated.

For a moment, he felt himself slipping, losing the relief of having survived in the face of such a harrowing reality. He stared at her for a long time, and then—

And then Asuka made a soft, groggy noise and began to stir. Her blue eyes fluttered open, focused slowly as they searched the room, and became fixed on Shinji.

His concern for her sketched on his features and he knew she saw it instantly. Her eyes remained dull and sleep-logged, but her lips turned up and she shared a little, utterly exhausted smile with him, just enough to let him know she was fine. The knot in Shinji's throat eased. He smiled back, letting her know that he was all right as well, and that he was still with her. That, somehow, they had made it.

Neither said anything. No calling for each other, no asking how they were feeling. There was no need. They were alive, and they were together. Shinji couldn't ask for anything more.

Asuka lifted her head and looked down at herself. Her brow twisted as she realized her current situation. She tried to raise her left arm, the one hooked up to the IV, only to find that it was securely restrained and wouldn't give. Similar attempts to move her legs resulted in little more than wiggling feet and clenching toes.

Shinji watched her carefully, wondering if he should do anything. He decided against it. The doctors must have been worried about contamination—or, at the very least, her state of mind—so the restraints made sense in case she tried to hurt him or herself. Asuka had survived, but the fact was he had no idea what had actually happened inside Unit-02.

Finally, with a grumble that could have been a curse and a heavy sigh, Asuka's head slumped back on the pillow. She stared at the ceiling for a moment, then looked towards Shinji, and the glimmer in her eyes suggested she expected him to provide an explanation.

Instead, he shrugged rather haplessly.

"Idiot … " Asuka croaked, her voice barely audible and very hoarse. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she let it go, apparently resigning herself to being stuck here like this for now. Her bound, cable-riddled body relaxed noticeably, sinking back into the sheets. But despite her nudity and the coldness of the room, an expression of warmth washed over her face. Everything was quiet again.

Still watching her, Shinji lay down and curled on his side, drawing his blanket comfortably around him and settling in. Within minutes, Asuka had fallen into a deep and peaceful sleep. He followed soon afterward.

* * *

"Well, we sure know how to make a mess, don't we?" Hyuga kicked a the pile of concrete on which he stood to make his point, sending little gray pebbles rolling down hill. "At least nobody got hurt ... badly," he was prompted to add by Misato's look. "We should be thankful for that at least."

Misato sighed. Hyuga was right, even a professional demolition team would have had trouble doing so extensive a job as Unit-02 and Unit-01 had managed. The two weathered Evangelions were being locked down as they spoke. The test cages themselves were all but demolished. In fact, the two steel laminated boxes had effectively become one by the huge hole Unit-02 had punched through the containment wall between them, leaving mountain size chunks of concrete and bakelite, bent steel plates, and sheared support beams scattered through the large space.

The only thing more astonishing than the level of destruction was the sudden way in which it had all stopped.

They were finished; once Shinji had been caught in Unit-02's jaws it was over. Then, without reason or cause, Unit-02 just came to a halt, sparing Shinji's life, as well as theirs and probably the whole world. "Small miracles," she said sardonically, rubbing her bandaged hands together. "Not that I think God gives a damn."

But he probably does, Misato thought, and the proof of that was the two children now lying together in a hospital room downstairs. She was so grateful to have them with her still that she could almost forget all about Ritsuko's strange behavior. Almost.

She would rush to Asuka and Shinji's side in a moment, but right now was the time to get some answers out of Ritsuko.

"Someone must be looking after us. We were toast." Hyuga climbed down from his perch and came to sit beside Misato on the steel beam she had been using to give her weary frame a rest. "Without instruments we might never know for sure what happened."

Misato looked across the cage where Ritsuko and another group of technicians were tending to Unit-02, and from the looks of it, giving Commander Ikari, Sub-Commander Fuyutzuki and Rei, whose arm was bandaged up and placed in a sling, a tour. "Ritsuko knows."

Hyuga's brows came up. "You think?"

"I'm sure. She knows."

"You mean that it wasn't the information coming in that prompted her classifying Unit-02 as an Angel, but something else?" Hyuga said speculatively.

The Major pressed her lips. "What do you think?"

He considered. "I think she can't possibly have known it was an Angel so quickly—not without analyzing the data stream. Unless she was already suspicions, somehow, that this could happen. And we've spent the last week going over every little thing so the possibility of that is—Major?"

Misato saw Ritsuko break off from the group of technicians crowded around Unit-02 and head for the exit. She got to her feet and, with a gesture for Hyuga to stay put, followed her. A jumble of emotions tugged at her, but she was clear on what she was about to do—it wasn't about duty anymore, and perhaps it should have never been.

She caught up to Ritsuko in one of the locker rooms as she was changing her filthy lab coat for a clean one. A flash of recognition crossed Ritsuko's gaze.

It was confirmed seconds later when Misato asked the obvious question, "What happened today, Ritsuko?"

"I am not sure I know what you mean." Recognition turned to that annoyed look Ritsuko gave people she didn't feel like explaining anything to. Unfortunately for her, Misato was not in the mood to be brushed off so lightly.

"No more lies." Misato made her words into a stern demand. "You declared Unit-02 an Angel without even bothering to know what was happening. It was almost as if you were expecting something to go wrong."

"You were there the same as I—"

Before she had a chance to finish, Misato had reached into her jacket and pulled out her gun, raising the black 9mm. directly at Ritsuko, who had turned to face her, and frowned. Their gazes locked, neither blinking nor flinching, and Misato hoped that Ritsuko would understand how serious she was and how far she was willing to go.

Ritsuko stood her ground, bringing up her nose so that she appeared to be looking down at the threat of Misato's gun. "After you hear whatever explanation I can give, you are far more likely to shoot me."

"I am very likely to shoot you now."

"You are not a murderer."

Misato smiled, a humorless sort of smile. "Murder involves an innocent. You are not innocent," she said. "And you don't know anything about morals, either, do you? Just answer my question."

For a second Ritsuko said nothing, then sighed and nodded. "I guess you are determined to do this. Do you at least care to be more specific with the question?"

Misato thought about that for less than a heartbeat. "You said 'it' didn't want to us to know, what the hell didn't want us to know?"

"Very well." Ritsuko stuck her hands into her coat pockets without bothering to roll up the sleeves like she usually did. "Unit-02 didn't want us to know. More precisely, Unit-02's operating system."

"The Emerald Tablet?"

If Ritsuko was surprised, she disguised it well. "So you know what it's called, but do you know what it is?"

"A computer program. You requisitioned it from the ISSDF several months ago."

Even that much was not easy to find, and even then only because a report had been filed referencing it in relation with some kind of software package for Unit-02. Misato had not been looking for that at the time, and the Evas' software was constantly updated, so finding such a report was not that unusual. What struck her was the fact that it was encrypted—she had been using Hyuga's hacked laptop at the time—but up until now she had no use for this information.

"Only in the same general sense that a human brain can be called a computer program," Ritsuko explained. "The Emerald Tablet was built as a complex evolutionary computation algorithm some time after Second Impact by a UN initiative looking into self-learning systems." She paused. "But the code it's based on is much older than that. The original team, including my mother, worked off a previous project. Nobody knows where the first instance of the code originated. We know Turing referenced it, but even he did not understand how something like this could exists when digital computing was in its infancy."

Misato felt her eyes widen despite herself. "You are kidding ..."

"No, I am not. Some even speculated the progenitor code that became the Tablet might be as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves," Ritsuko continued. "My mother believed it was like a time capsule, something that could only be opened once computer technology advanced enough. 'Emerald Tablet' was simply the codename she gave it. The result of the project was the creation of the first artificial intelligence complex enough to match the human mind. Eventually the project was shut down and the research ordered destroyed."

Naoko Akagi, Misato knew, was one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the last hundred years. Even Ritsuko would have trouble living up to her. "I doubt your mother would throw away something like that."

"She didn't. As part of the old GEHIRN staff it occurred to her it might serve as a substitute for a human pilot inside Eva, a precursor of the Dummy System. It failed at first because an A-10 connection could never be established. You know what the A-10 link represents, right?"

"Remind me."

Ritsuko's expression flashed contempt. "It doesn't matter. But because of the A-10 deficiency, GEHIRN decided that if the Tablet could not replace the pilot, it might be used to enhance the connection. That worked much better than anyone anticipated. Despite this it was abandoned a second time."

"Why?" Misato almost didn't want to ask, but having come so far and not get answers would just be idiotic.

"Because science has a strange way of haunting us. Of reminding us of what we are, for better and for worse. " She paused, seeming to need a moment to gather her thoughts. "The Tablet is fundamentally a problem solving mechanism, an extremely complex difference engine. It was theorized that when it came in contact with the Evangelion it found another problem it needed to solve, the same theoretical problem as the Instrumentality Project, and it reached the same conclusion."

Misato felt her empty stomach suddenly jolt. Involuntarily, her grip on the gun tightened. "You mean—"

"Of course, such theories make certain assumptions. The Tablet was not properly understood. While self-learning does not equate to self-awareness, the GEHIRN staff didn't have a full grasp of what the Tablet could do. The contact experiment results have all been lost, but I can safely assume the Tablet learned from every one of them. Nobody ever really knew how it became aware of the Evangelion's true potential—the Eva's genetic memory, more than likely—probably the same thing that allowed it to learn how to recombine the Eva's DNA. By the time that happened, it was not really a computer program anymore. I suppose a better way to describe it would be an 'entity'."

"And you put this inside Unit-02, with Asuka?" Misato said slowly, making sure to draw attention to every single word as she said it, and every word loaded with anger.

"We had no choice." Ritsuko didn't look sorry. "The original intent was to use it to operate the Dummy System, but that required the system be rebuilt from scratch. For the sake of expediency we tried it on Rei. Unit-02 was different—I did not load the entire program, but the standard software interface was simply not adaptive enough to synch Asuka's broken psyche with it. We needed an alternative. I adapted the Tablet's interface shell to act as a bridge between her and Unit-02, filling up the gaps in her neural patterns like a digital symbiont and creating a form of entanglement that would benefit her. Without it she would not have been able to pilot."

"You put this thing in there WITH ASUKA!" Misato screamed, all pretense of self-control lost, her gun shaking in an echo of her fury. "You knew it was dangerous and you still—"

"And you don't think I've lost sleep about that?" Ritsuko cut her off, her composure finally cracking beneath the weight of Misato's accusation. "I took precautions. I built a firewall around it. And there is the pilot's ego barrier. I told you, didn't I? The Emerald Tablet cannot create an A-10 connection to the Eva. It needs the pilot. It needs to—but Asuka is stronger than most girls her age. As long as she could hold out there was no danger."

"And then what happens?" Misato pounced forward, taking Ritsuko by the arm and shoving her up against one of the lockers, sticking the gun to her chest. "Tell me! What happens to Asuka when she can't take it anymore? What? My God, Ritsuko, she's a young girl and you used her like a lab rat!"

To her credit, Ritsuko was not intimidated. She could be mad at Misato, could refuse to say anything else and have her thrown in the brig, but her gaze was full of an empty regret that Misato hadn't noticed there seconds before. "We needed to be able to defend ourselves. After the Chinese had activated Unit-A there was no going back."

"Unit-A was never supposed to work, was it? You wanted it to go wrong because it would give you a chance to put this plan into action."

"No, you are wrong," Ritsuko said. "We had a schedule. The Chinese branch activated Unit-A on their own and made a mess of everything. But that's irrelevant. If we hadn't done what we did, Asuka would have never been able to use Unit-02 to save Shinji and we would have all died."

"You do deserve to die, Ritsuko." Misato meant it. Never had she wished someone ill so much ill until now.

"Maybe I do. It doesn't matter now. Unit-02's drives have been forcibly degaussed. Most of the main memory nodes were breached by some kind of biological feedback, probably originating from inside the entry-plug, either badly corroding or destroying the coding. Then the original programming rebooted itself and overwrote the Emerald Tablet's interface shell."

"Are you saying Unit-02 stopped itself?"

"Asuka made it stop. I don't know how, or even if such a thing is possible, but that's what happened. It's over—in more ways than you can imagine."

"What do you-"

"Dr. Akagi, we're—" Maya stopped on her tracks as she entered the locker room and was confronted by the spectacle of her boss being held at gunpoint by her other boss. She blinked repeatedly in disbelief, clutching her clipboard to her chest like a shield as they both turned their head towards her in near-perfect unison. "Ah, am … am I interrupting?" she asked meekly.

Misato would have found it funny under different circumstances. "Maya, you didn't see anything."

"But…"

"Maya," Ritsuko said, "you didn't see anything. Go back."

But Maya didn't move. And suddenly, unexpectedly, Misato saw she was trembling.

And she started to cry.

"Maya?"

"Sorry," Maya sniffed, rubbing away at her cheeks with a uniformed sleeve. "I'm sorry, I ... I can't do this anymore."

Stunned by the sudden outburst, Misato did not resist as Ritsuko pushed her off, brushing the gun aside without any fear at what she might do and walked over to Maya. When Ritsuko put an arm around the younger girl and drew her into an embrace of consolation, Misato could feel her anger slowly dissipating.

She had known Ritsuko for almost a decade—knew she was as cold and uncaring as a person could get—but seeing her actually holding Maya sparked a weariness in her she thought she had forgotten. She let her gun fall to her side, a thumb absently locking the safety.

Misato opened her mouth to ask what this was about, but suddenly the answer didn't matter as much as the gesture. She said nothing. Her whole body seemed to sag. She slumped on the bench that ran across the middle of the room, and stared at the floor, feeling old and exhausted beyond her age.

"If you want anything else, you know where my office is," Ritsuko told her, though her attention was still on Maya, who was talking softly in starts and stops between whimpers. She helped the girl to her feet and guided her out of the locker room.

It was at that moment that Misato made a decision. She had renounced her humanity for the sake of anger, repeating the vicious cycle that kept her bound to NERV, and its hideous man-made monster, and its shroud of misery that corrupted everything she loved; the cycle that had taken Kaji from her and destroyed whatever happiness she might have found.

No more. The cycle would end here—in this place, at this very moment—like it should have ended when Kaji had told her to seek the truth and to move forward. But she needed a way out.

She needed a way out for Shinji and Asuka and, if there was time, herself.

* * *

It was after midnight by the time Ritsuko found a chance to head to the surface near the shore of the Third Ashino Lake, ascending through one of the service elevators. The cicadas were chirping their song in the distance and she was annoyed at the monotonous stupidity of it. They should have gone extinct—nothing endured save for the damned bugs.

She looked at the memory module Maya had given her as she dialed on her cell phone. Maya had tried to explain but, fortunately, most of what she'd said made no sense so she hoped Misato wouldn't care; she'd seemed willing enough to let it slide. And if she should ask, Ritsuko could always make something up. Letting her know about the Emerald Tablet had merely been a favor to an old friend, and a warning—Misato was smart, she'd figure it out.

Ritsuko hoped very much she did.

Things had not gone to plan with Unit-02 either, but in the end the result was the desired one. Ritsuko cared little how it happened, only that it did. For the sake of appearances both Asuka and Shinji were confined to quarantine. Just as well, those two could use some time together. They would function better.

The phone rang once and was answered. "You aren't supposed to call this number."

"Why did you use Maya?" Ritsuko asked; there was no need for greetings or introductions.

"We needed tangible information," the man on the other side of the line did not hesitate. "We couldn't afford to place you in such a compromising position."

Ritsuko looked out at the lake. There were no clouds so the reflection of the full moon gleamed on the surface like a silver orb, distorted by gentle swells as the wind blew on the water. "We had a deal. Don't do something like this again. The only way to get what you want is to come to me."

"Understood," he said. "But we really do need what we sent the girl to get."

"You'll have it."

Ritsuko could picture Musashi Kluge grinning on the other side. "How nice of you." He paused. "I'm still curious, my good doctor, as to what you are hoping to get out of this."

"Exactly what you need this data to do."

"He must have cut you deeply."

Ritsuko ground her teeth. "He's a swine, like you."

"Ah, hell hath no fury—"

The phone had been tossed into the lake before that sentence was finished, sending ripples across the calm, dark water. With a final breath of fresh air filling her lungs, Ritsuko walked back into Central Dogma—back to Gendo Ikari.

Soon she would make him pay for using her and then throwing her aside.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	13. Onus

Notes: Finally, chapter 13. I have to say I never thought I'd get done with the rewrite, and at times it seemed like was simply an impossible task. Thanks go to Useriel and Tabasco for the proof-reading, SW, Big D and Nemo for the feedback, and all the reviewers who actually take time. Now I can focus on the future (and writing more smut!). I think at this point it's a forgone conclusion that there will be a chapter 14 before the finale. Too many things need to be worked on and some need to be set up. There are also several omake ideas floating around, but you'll have to go to the evageeks forums to check those out.

Okay, that's enough of me talking. Here you go:

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended**

**"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future."**

**-George Bernard Shaw.**

**Genocide 0:13 / Onus.**

* * *

Even in total darkness Shinji had no trouble finding his way to the kitchen.

He'd just turned on the sink faucet to pour himself a glass of water when Misato stepped through the front door and flipped the light, making him wince.

"Sorry," his guardian said, seeing him. She flipped the switch again and the light turned off.

"It's okay," he replied, rubbing his eyes. Misato's schedule had never been regular enough for him to be surprised by her midnight arrivals-some times she was lucky if she could make it home at all. And with both Unit-01 and Unit-02, not to mention Central Dogma itself, undergoing repairs, she probably had a lot more work than usual.

Probably. He wouldn't really know. Asuka and him had spent most of the last four days in the hospital ward, isolated from everyone and everything except each other and the nurses and doctors that came in to check on them in shifts. Misato visited them regularly, but she had said very little about what was going on with NERV in the aftermath of Unit-02's attack and was more interested in how they were doing than in filling them in.

Because of the fear of contamination and the possibility of violent behavior, Asuka was kept restrained for the first day. She was very clearly annoyed, but this wasn't nearly as much of a problem as when the doctors decided to examine her physical condition more closely. They had enough respect for her privacy to place movable screens around her bed. But Shinji, whose bed was nearby, had still caught glances of her sitting there naked, loose golden-red hair spilling over her shoulders, as the doctors did their examination, poking, prodding and asking her questions.

Asuka's annoyance quickly turned to surly anger. Strangely, Shinji took that as a good sign, even if the doctors were not amused.

When it became fairly obvious she wasn't contaminated, they took her off most of the machines that had been attached to her, with the exception of the IV, released her from her restraints and allowed her to dress in a gown. From that point on her mood improved markedly, and it was impossible to keep her in her own bed.

Dealing with a suddenly, inexplicably upbeat Asuka in such close proximity proved exhausting. The only time her facade cracked was when the subject of the last battle came up. One of the doctors asked Asuka what had happened inside Unit-02, since apparently the computers failed and there was no data. Shinji had been keen to avoid this, figuring she would talk about it when she was good and ready—the way Asuka did everything—but the doctor's insistence grated on her.

Arms folded across her chest, Asuka withdrew back into moody silence for hours. From then on, she refused to have anything to do with that doctor. Shinji managed to coax her out of it, mostly by bumbling his way into an argument—now there was a familiar situation. Asuka didn't give him a lot of details, but she did say Unit-02 was 'fixed'. Whatever that meant.

Finally, four days in, they were informed that Misato had negotiated an early release provided they stick to certain conditions in accordance with the doctors' wishes, especially Asuka.

Shinji raised the glass to his lips and drank. As he tilted his head back, a twinge of pain quickly reminded him of his injury—his sprained neck was not much of a concern, but it still hurt when he moved his head too much. Misato failed to notice. She removed her shoes and draped her red jacket across the back of the nearest chair then walked over to the refrigerator with silent steps.

"How come you're up so late?" his guardian asked, glancing at him as she dug through the fridge for leftovers. She took out a pot covered with a plate, peeked inside to determine the contents, then placed the whole thing in the microwave and set the timer.

Shinji shrugged and gestured with his glass. "I wanted some water."

"Well I'm glad I caught you." Misato turned her back to the microwave, facing him fully and leaning on the wooden counter. "I haven't seen you since you left the hospital. I thought maybe we could get a chance to talk, you know, in private."

"About what?" Shinji said, the glass almost to his lips.

Misato paused, waiting and perhaps deciding if she should change her mind. "About you," she said after a moment, "and Asuka."

Shinji lowered his glass. He had known this was coming ever since admitting his feelings to his guardian in the middle of the battle. She meant well, he didn't doubt that, but it wasn't something he would like to discuss. What he felt for Asuka was not easy to describe—he hardly thought he had figured it out himself. It felt awkward to even think about bringing it up in such a casual way with Misato. "Do we have to?"

Misato nodded adamantly. "Yes. Because there are some things you have to know."

Shinji dropped his head, feeling a blush of embarrassment beginning to rise to his cheeks. He recoiled, looking at his bare feet on the tiled kitchen floor. Did she really have to do this?

Misato waited another moment, and Shinji hoped she would give it up. She was merely gathering her courage. "Shinji, love isn't what you think it is," she finally continued, ignoring his discomfort but not sounding all too certain herself. "It's not all about running around giggling and making dirty jokes to each other. It's not about holding hands. It's not about kissing or making out. You can't just say you are in love. Sometimes what you think love feels like isn't really love at all."

Shinji was sure that halfway through Misato's speech his face had started to turn even redder from wanton shame. "Mi-Misato, I really don't want to—"

"Too bad." She took a deep, steadying breath and carried on. "Shinji, what I'm trying to say is that sometimes we fall in love for the wrong reasons. We think we want to, that we can find happiness in someone else's arms, but what we are really after is not love."

Slowly, his gaze crawled on the floor, tracing a path towards her stocking-clad feet. Asuka would never wear stockings, he thought absurdly. He did his best to ignore Misato's words, but the caring and concern he heard in her voice made that impossible. This was important to her, and so, even though he couldn't look at her, he listened.

"Sometimes all we want is to fill in a void," Misato said, her feet turning slightly inwards. "And we use other people to do that. We cling to them because they remind us of things we lost—of people we lost or feelings we used to have but have forgotten. It's not your fault. Everyone does it, whether consciously or not. It's hard for grown-ups to realize it, but for someone your age the hardest part is accepting it."

In the silence that followed, Shinji knew she wanted him to say something. He didn't, but she didn't budge and waited him out. He could feel her staring him down, pushing him. Her feet twitched in what he guessed was annoyance.

His hand tensed nervously around the glass. He looked up at the living room doorway and imagined himself walking through the darkness on the way back to his bed. Though the nightmares had stopped, Asuka had decided to continue sleeping with him. He wanted to be next to her more than anything.

Misato moved away from the counter and stood in the middle of the gap between it and the table, blocking Shinji's most immediate escape route.

It took nearly another minute of silence before he gave in. "That's not how I feel about Asuka." Shinji shook his head solemnly. "Maybe I did at first, when I didn't know what I was feeling, but not anymore."

"Shinji." Gently, Misato reached out to place her hand on his shoulder. "I didn't mean you. I meant Asuka."

Shinji blinked his surprise, his gaze focusing on her inadvertently. "Oh?"

Misato squeezed his shoulder gently, her face so awash in loving concern that Shinji had to turn his head away. "Asuka is a very complicated girl, and love is a very complicated thing. Put them together and you get an extremely complicated relationship. You are probably very clear on what you want from that relationship, but you can never know for sure what she wants."

Shinji thought that she was wrong but could not find any words to argue with. She didn't know all that had happened between Asuka and him. The redhead would have gone ballistic; he, on the other hand, felt helpless.

"Even if she told you, you would never know if it was the truth. You'll do anything to give her what you think she wants: your heart, your mind, your body—" Misato gave him a dirty look that made his blush deepen "—your very being in any conceivable way. But you can never know if that is what she wants. What she really wants. And that leads to doubt and separation."

Shinji's shoulders sagged, lowering Misato hand with them. She kept squeezing, as if wanting to give him encouragement. His eyes dragged on the floor between their feet, partly because of how embarrassed he was and partly because Misato was hitting too close to home. He didn't want to see the sincerity in her eyes that would mean she was talking about the inevitable.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, his low low and sullen. "Don't you want me to be happy?"

Misato moved one hand slowly off his shoulder and brought up her other one. She stepped closer to him, erasing the gap between them and bent over slightly, cupping his face gently in her hands. Her palms pushing up on his cheeks, she lifted his head and his gaze.

Shinji stared at her, eyes going wide, stuck between wanting to pull away from her touch and paralyzed at the soothing warmth from her hands on his face. Even Asuka seldom touched him in such an intimate way. But Misato knew how to touch. He felt awkward, uncomfortable in the extreme, and yet he could not run. The look on her face, too, was calm and reassuring.

She leaned even closer. For a moment, Shinji was afraid she would kiss him and closed his eyes, but then she just touched her forehead to his.

"I want you so much to be happy," Misato whispered. "You have no idea how much I want you to be happy."

Shinji could smell her perfume. He swallowed hard. "Then why ..."

"I'm telling you because I don't want you to be disappointed," Misato said. "Because I don't want you to wake up one day with Asuka by your side and realize that what you thought was happiness is something else. Something sadder. I don't want you to realize that your heart is empty, you just didn't know it. I don't want you to regret it."

"Misato …"

The soft padding of bare feet on carpet prevented him going any further. He opened his eyes and shifted his glance just as Asuka wandered sleepily into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes, clad in her long shirt and not much else.

Shinji was sure she would get the wrong idea, seeing Misato holding him like she was, but her expression remained relaxed. Her eyes drowsily peered at him from behind tousled locks of hair, then at Misato, then back at him.

"This is a weird dream," Asuka murmured. "Are we supposed to take our clothes off now?"

Misato let him go and straightened up. "Hi, Asuka," she said, a little too lightheartedly. "How are you feeling?"

"Sleepy." Asuka yawned loudly, stretching her arms. She had gotten through the fight between Unit-02 and Unit-01 nearly unscathed, but her condition before that had become a cause for concern. The chronic insomnia, emotional exhaustion, and poor eating habits, when she ate at all, had taken their toll. Her pediatrician had been horrified and refused to release her unless she commit to take better care of herself and agree to a new, more healthy diet.

Of course, Shinji was responsible for the latter. The doctor gave him a list of things Asuka could eat and an even longer list of things she could not. Sweets and junk food were now officially banned in the Katsuragi household.

"Well, that's an improvement right there," Misato said, taking Shinji out of his reverie. "I'm glad you are sleeping better."

Asuka nodded vaguely, then turned her attention back to Shinji. "You coming back to bed or what, Third Child?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there. Just getting some water." He hurriedly chugged the glass.

Asuka seemed appeased, but as she was about to head back through the darkened apartment to his bedroom Misato called out to her. "Wait a moment, Asuka."

The redhead stopped mid-step, a pink heel in the air. "What?"

"Maya wanted me to tell you that you have a synch test scheduled for Sunday," Misato said. "Unit-02 is still undergoing repairs after, well, I'm sure you remember. So we'll have to work on synch testing for now."

"Sunday, got it." Again she turned to leave, and again Misato stopped her.

"There's one more thing," the older woman said, her voice graver. "Maya is in charge of this test. I'll be there, too. I don't expect it to be a problem. But if Ritsuko comes up to you I don't want you talking to her. In fact, I don't want you anywhere near her on your own."

Asuka blinked, her brain fighting to shake off the weight of sleepiness slowing it down. "Why?"

"She ..." Misato trailed off, and it seemed to take her another few seconds to find the right words. "She doesn't have your best interest at heart. Do it for me, as a favor."

"You already owe me a lot of favors," Asuka said, looking her over. Shinji could see the usual cunning spark lighting up behind the bright blue irises, determining intentions and measuring responses.

"One day I'll pay them all back," Misato said with a smile. "I promise. Until then just add one more to the list."

Shinji dropped his eyebrows in puzzlement and turned to Misato, sure that Asuka would not be content with being told it was a favor. Whatever the reasons for their guardian to ask her not to talk to someone so deeply involved in what both of them did for a living, they had to be good ones. Either that, or they were very, very bad.

But Asuka shrugged her shoulders. "Fine, whatever. It's not like I'm friends with her." Her thin eyebrows flattened in deadpan. "Anything else?"

Misato waved her off. "No, you're good. 'Night."

Asuka mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "good night." She turned and left, vanishing out of sight into the dark space of the living room, the quiet sound of her shuffling footsteps fading away into the distance.

Shinji set the empty glass on the table and attempted to follow her before Misato could pick up where Asuka's entrance had interrupted her. He was almost out of the kitchen. Almost.

"Shinji, about before," she said, a little more hesitantly. He stopped and sighed, lowering his head. "I didn't tell you any of that to upset you. That is the last thing I want to do. You know that, right?"

There were few things Shinji Ikari knew for certain; that was one of them. He couldn't bring himself to face her for fear he might lose his composure. Then he would have to explain to Asuka why he was on the verge of tears. "I know."

"I know young people are not usually inclined to listen to advice, but everything I've told you I've learned from experience and I hope you listen because—" she choked on that word and Shinji swiveled his head around to look at her without thinking "—because if you know all this and you still love her, and you know that you love her, then despite whatever doubts you have, whatever fears, whatever insecurities, you should hold on to her with all the strength you have."

Shinji listened, not daring to say a word though he could tell, halfway through, that she was in pain.

"Hold on to her because if you let go you will regret it all your life. I promise that you will. And those are the kind of mistakes that there might not be enough time to correct."

And then he got it. She was talking about Asuka, but she was also talking about Kaji. He understood now; if bringing up his feelings like this was hard on him, it was ever harder on her.

Shinji tried thinking about this, and found that he didn't have to. "There is no doubt, Misato," he said firmly, recognizing that she cared so much for him she was willing to tear open an old wound for his sake. "Good night."

"Good night, Shinji." She forced a smiled. "Sleep tight."

His own smile came much more easily. "Thank you."

As he started to leave, Misato popped open the microwave, which had been finished for a while now, and sniffed the food. Behind him, Shinji heard her say, "Yeah, nothing says 'you are home' like a steaming pot of whatever this is."

It didn't strike him until he was laying again in his bed, his back turned to Asuka's slender form under the same set of sheets, that there really was no doubt whatsoever about the way he felt for her. She might feel differently. She might still have doubts. And if she did he would figure it out and try to understand. But he would not let go.

* * *

"Why do you not go inside?" Rei Ayanami spoke softly, the only way she ever said anything.

Junichi Nakayima had become used to it over the last couple of days so neither her voice nor her presence startled him, but he still wished she would make more noise. Kids her age were supposed to be loud, noisy and obnoxious. Rei Ayanami was none of those things.

He had been sitting on the floor just outside Keiko Nagara's hospital room for the better part of an hour now, and when he lifted his head to look at the blue-haired girl his neck felt stiff. Two shimmering rubies looked back.

"It's complicated," he said.

"It seems fairly simple, unless I misunderstand," Rei replied. "If you wish to go inside, why do you wait outside?"

Nakayima shrugged it off. He was not in the mood to answer questions. He was not in the mood for anything. Ever since Major Katsuragi slapped him and told he was disgusting he found it hard to rid himself of the feeling of dejection that seemed to have taken over his life. He had truly meant to do the right thing by Keiko and Miko, now he didn't know what right was. "Why do you care?"

"Because you look sad."

That surprised him. He looked at her more carefully. Her pleasant features seemed completely unemotional; her body language was straight and controlled. She wasn't trying to intrude, that much was apparent. She was just there. Confronted by his gaze, she blinked in seeming curiosity, waiting.

"Well, I'm not," he said. It wasn't a lie simply because he didn't know what sadness felt like anymore. Maybe he was and just failed to realize it. "I'm trying to make a decision. Grown up stuff. You wouldn't understand."

"Understanding is not dependent on age," Rei said. "A child does not have to understand to love the parents."

Nakayima snickered. What did this girl know? She was just a teenager. Commander Ikari's favorite at that. Age did make a difference when it came to your understanding that the cruel world always worked against you. "Most of us outgrow childish love."

"And replace it with anger, and bitterness," Rei said. "Yes, I have seen that."

He furrowed his brow. "It's called growing up."

"Then why are you here?"

"I don't know." Nakayima shook his head. Of course he knew—he wasn't stupid. He was here because he cared about the girls in that room, and because he loved one of them. But having tried, and failed, to do the only thing he could think of to protect them, that knowledge didn't help him at all. If anything, it made the sense of helplessness worse.

"You do, or you would not be here," Rei said, calling his lie without a hint of accusation. "But you do not understand."

"You are assuming there's a difference," he told her.

"There is." Rei's face remained stoic. The light made her skin appear an incredibly pale white.

Nakayima scowled. "You know, if you want to help maybe you should try being less deliberately vague, even for a-" a child, he wanted to say but couldn't. "For a teenager," he finished.

"I do not see the problem. I know, and I try to understand. That is enough for me. Perhaps it should be for you."

Something about the calm, soft way she said those words that gave him pause. Before falling in love he would have thought this was just the fantasies of a teen girl who was too young to know better. And he would have been far too cynical to believe her. Now, he wasn't really sure. Nobody had to tell him he was in love, just as he hadn't needed to understand it. He had felt it, like he had felt he needed to help Miko and Keiko no matter what it might cost any of them.

He was still trying to come up with an answer when the door to Keiko's room opened and Miko stood there, looking attractive as she always did in his eyes. He pulled himself hurriedly to his feet, but the blonde kept her attention on Rei as she stepped into the hallway.

"You here to see Keiko again, Rei?" Miko asked the young albino girl.

"Yes."

Miko stepped aside to her pass, a faint smile lifting her features. Rei walked silently inside without another word to either her or Nakayima and the two of them exchanged a look. The door closed after the First Child.

"She's a good girl," Miko said, and Nakayima could tell she had grown fond of Rei. "She's been coming in to see Keiko just about every day. I didn't think Keiko had made any close friends like that. She always wanted to get along with Asuka, but I didn't know she and Rei were close." She moved closer to him, holding her hands together. "It's comforting, to be honest. I don't know what it is, but Rei … I don't know. She's got this aura. It's heavenly."

"Some people would just call it weird," Nakayima said.

Miko slapped him on the arm. "Don't say that, you jerk." She looked back at the closed door for a moment. "It's not weird at all."

Nakayima said nothing, feeling he had not earned the right to contradict her. And, in a way, he was not really sure Rei visiting a fellow pilot was weird. He recalled what she said to him a moment ago. A child didn't need to understand to love the parents. Did he really need to? Wasn't knowing that he wanted to be here enough?

I have a reason, he thought. She knew that when she was talking to me.

"And what about you?" Miko said, returning her glance to him, the smile he liked so much still there. "They'll be in there for a while. Wanna have some breakfast?"

He wasn't sure she would be smiling after he said what he'd come to say—that he had asked Major Katsuragi to help him take both her and Keiko away from this place; that even though it was a selfish idea, it was all he could do for them. He would rather not, but he had to come clean. Miko would understand.

Well, he hoped she would.

"I need to tell you something," Nakayima said, reaching out to take her hand. "Yeah, lets go have some breakfast."

* * *

Hyuga took his eyes away from the screen that showed Asuka's video feed from inside the test plug and cast a relieved glance up at Misato.

"At least she looks happy," he said.

"She does, doesn't she?" Misato agreed, moving back slightly. She had been leaning so far over his shoulder she was practically sitting in his chair. The young redhead on the screen had her eyes closed, the lines around them that had marked her inability to sleep now gone. Her face was relaxed, a slight smile on her lips. "If you had told me last week I'd be seeing her smile I would have sent you in for a medical check-up."

"I guess things really have changed for her," Maya said, standing near the observation window, her eyes fixed on the test plug beyond. Misato looked at her closely; there had been something strange about the younger woman lately, a sense of distance that hadn't been there before. "She's had such a tough time."

Because of Ritsuko, Misato reminded herself acidly. Her so-called friend and her were no longer on speaking terms, which was probably the best thing that could happen at this point. She was yet to divulge the secret of what Ritsuko had done to Asuka. While it would do a lot to ease the lingering hostility towards Unit-02 and its pilot after, once again, going berserk, Misato thought the effect on morale would be catastrophic.

There was no telling how Asuka would take it, either. Misato could guess it wouldn't be pleasant. Ritsuko, in her role as Chief Scientist, was supposed to look after her. To find out that her trust had been betrayed would anger Asuka in the extreme.

And then there was the smile Misato saw on Hyuga's screen—for the first time since she could recall, Asuka seemed happy. However it had happened, telling her the truth would likely shatter that happiness.

Misato knew it was inevitable, and that sooner or later she would have to tell her. It was Asuka's life, after all. She, as someone who cared deeply for her, had a responsibility. But the right situation never presented itself, the right moment never came; a few nights ago she had almost done it but with Shinji in the kitchen—who knew how he would take it. And so Misato kept pushing it back.

"What's her synch-ratio?" Maya asked from the front.

Hyuga quickly scanned another screen. "94.2%," he said. "Give or take five-tenths for error correction. Harmonics, and vitals are stable. No sign of contamination or the anomaly. Surprisingly considering we haven't reloaded Unit-02's operating system. Um, EEG shows stimuli to her limbic system."

She was enjoying herself, Misato concluded. That had been the rule rather than exception over the last week, but it was still surprising. She thought Asuka would be peeved—if not outright angry—at being left in the hospital again. The fact that she was locked up with Shinji seemed to work wonders on her.

Of course, that was another issue. Shinji had made his feelings for Asuka clear, and he obviously believed that went both ways. For her part, Asuka continued to pick on him endlessly, and it worried Misato that Shinji might be wrong. And even if he wasn't, that was no guarantee. It had pained her to have to bring these things up with him, but he had to know. Asuka would probably yell at her that it was none of her business.

Still, there was no denying a change had taken place in the loudmouthed redhead. The picture from Unit-02's entry-plug showed that as unmistakably as the smile on her face, an expression Misato thought she would never see again. Asuka was good at faking and hiding how she really felt, a talent honed by pride and arrogance, but the smiled looked genuine.

With Unit-02 undergoing repairs, not to mention still under lock-down, Asuka was more than glad to content herself with synch-testing. Whether she would get to pilot her Eva again was not yet determined.

Misato saw no reason for her to know until the decision was made final. Should Unit-02 be cleared, Asuka would be upset needlessly. And, anyway, she didn't believe for a moment that Unit-02 would be off station longer than necessary for repairs; Ritsuko knew what she had done, and knew that neither Asuka nor Unit-02 were to blame. Keeping it in lock-down had more to do with appearances, covering up her lies, than any actual threat to their safety.

"Let me talk to her," Misato ordered Hyuga.

The operator pressed a button in his console and signaled for her to speak.

"Asuka," she said, "How are you doing?"

The pretty, young face on the monitor remained relaxed. "Fine," Asuka said in her usual haughty tone. "I told you already, it feels right again. Hows it going over there?"

"Pretty good," Misato replied. Even Asuka's voice seemed to have changed in the last week. Before it had a heavy, angry quality to it. Now it was sharp and light, almost perky, and full of energy.

Just like Asuka herself was full of energy. No more dropping her head or dragging her feet or slouching shoulders. Their late-night meeting in the kitchen notwithstanding, the redhead prowled around with a kind of confidence she had been badly missing. She seemed so much more like the Asuka Misato had first met in Germany, an extremely precocious 10 year-old accustomed to getting whatever she wanted—and whining incessantly when she didn't.

Misato felt a warm sensation spreading in her chest. Like she did with Shinji, she wanted to think of Asuka as a happy child even if the traumas of her childhood had all but ruined her innocence. She was smiling again now, Misato would take that as a good sign; only midway through her teens, there was hope for her yet.

She turned her head back to Maya. "Anything else you need, Maya?"

Maya checked the list on her clipboard. "No, I think we've got everything." She flipped through some pages. "Her results are better than expected, actually."

Misato tilted her head to Asuka's image, shifting her shoulders slightly. "We are done up here, Asuka. You ready to go?"

On the screen, Asuka's eyes finally opened. "Owww, do I have to?"

"Yes." Misato looked curiously at Hyuga. There had been something in Asuka's smarmy disappointed-but-not-really tone that had prompted a smile on his face. Given the dark mood that had enveloped them all lately, Asuka's cheerfulness was contagious. "There's a line in your contract that says you can only have so much fun," Misato added. "I'd say you crossed that line maybe, oh, ten minutes ago."

Asuka wrinkled her nose and made a face. "Spoilsport."

Misato gave a nod of her head to the operator on the front of the room. Maya acknowledged it. With that silent order the shutdown sequence was begun. Maya hovered around the terminals, checking screens to ensure no alarms were raised, and to keep an eye on Asuka's data. Everything was going great thus far, but they weren't ready to let down their guard just yet.

Once the shutdown was complete, Misato walked quickly to the observation window and peered down into the brightly-lit space beyond. The LCL drained, the test plug opened, its top half sliding backwards to reveal the complicated control seat and console within. Asuka, slender and clad in vivid red amongst the otherwise drab interior, sat forward, wringing her soaked hair in her gloved hands. Then she stood and jumped out, performing a perfect landing on two feet, flexing her knees, arms spread.

As the redhead skipped on her tip-toes to the chamber exit, Misato checked her watch. "Hyuga, have you seen Nakayima?"

Suddenly, Hyuga seemed annoyed. "Ask Section 2. But that guy does whatever he wants. It's not like we have to keep tabs on him."

"I'll just call his cell phone." Misato decided not to acknowledge his outburst. She knew from the way Hyuga acted around her some times that he wanted there to be more between them than just a working relationship, and she wished she could return his feelings. He was a nice guy who was always looking to help, but he wasn't Misato's type.

Nakayima wasn't her type either. Maybe she should have taken the time to explain that to Hyuga.

She patted the operator on the shoulder on the way out of the room, reaching for her phone as she walked.

She took the personnel elevator to the deck below, and had just started to dial when she ran into Asuka walking down from the test area to the lockers. A tall, dark-haired technician escorted her—a member of Delta Team, Asuka's tech crew.

Over the last few days the Geo-Front had split down the middle; those who didn't think Asuka should be allowed near an Eva ever again, and those who did. Nobody really believed anyone meant her any harm, but Delta Team, having always worked with her and Unit-02, had taken it upon themselves to act as bodyguards. Just in case emotions ran too hot.

Misato hoped the whole thing would blow over soon. But seeing people support her ward, who only recently had seemed barely able to get herself out of bed, made her grateful. She had already requested that every member of Delta Team who volunteered to chaperone Asuka receive a raise.

Asuka didn't seem to mind. She acted like she was getting spoiled, and she loved being spoiled. It was her natural state, she had told Misato.

"It was good, wasn't it?" the redhead pipped up animatedly as she approached, bouncing up and down on the balls of her plug-suited feet. The smell of LCL clung to her heavily, wafting up like a cloud. "I mean, of course, that's what you'd expect from me."

Misato put down her cell phone and looked warmly at Asuka. "Yeah, maybe it's a new record."

Asuka grinned. "You know, I haven't been anywhere near my record in almost a year."

"Yeah, I know," Misato said. Remembering Asuka didn't liked to be touched, she resisted the urge to put her hand on her shoulder. "Are you going home now?"

"Ya-ha!" Asuka chirped loudly, bobbing her head.

"I guess I'll see you later, then," Misato said. "I've got some things to take care of at the moment."

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Asuka bounced off. Misato watched her go, followed closely by her escort. Only fourteen years old and she had already survived and endured so much. She was just a child, so young and yet at times she had seemed dead on the inside—just like Shinji.

Misato glanced at her cellphone. She knew what she had to do.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later Junichi Nakayima was waiting for her on the bridge between Central Dogma and the main road to the outside. Misato parked her car on the near side, closest to him and walked across the roadway. He had his elbows on the safety railing, a stony expression on his face. His black uniform made him seem ominous and threatening, but Misato had learned he was as harmless as a man in love could be.

Misato wasn't entirely sure what she would say, considering the way their last meeting had gone. She had so thoroughly shot down his offer that she would not be surprised if he didn't feel like listening to her now, and she wouldn't blame him. If he was the sort to hold a grudge she wasn't going to be getting much done.

"Major Katsuragi," Nakayima said pleasantly, taking his elbows off the rail and straightening. "You sounded urgent."

"Thank you for meeting me." Misato tried not to let the fact that she was sorry about how she had treated him show on her voice. She leaned next to him. "I was rather unfair to you."

"Don't worry about it," he said, shaking his head. "What can I do for you?"

"I think I made a mistake," she started. "I think I should have at least listened to you."

He was shaking his head again before she even finished. "No. I had no right to ask. You don't owe me anything. It was just … that's all I know. Asking favors of people for my own ends. I guess I inherited that from my father."

Misato could relate to that. The only way she knew of getting answers out of people was to point a gun at them. "This deal you talked about, you got any details?"

"Really?" Nakayima said eagerly, his slanted eyes widening.

She held up her hand. "I'm not saying I'm committing myself to anything. I don't have enough information to do that. That's why I wanted to talk to you about it."

"Okay," he said but could not cover up his disappointment, his eagerness tempered by a new sense of grim reality.

"I think you might have the right idea," Misato said. "But you went about it the wrong way, and I just wasn't ready to listen. After last week—did you hear?"

"The whole place was shaking. I've heard some rumors but nothing more."

Misato thought so; there hadn't been much information released after the incident. She wasn't really interested in that. All she needed to know was that once again she'd found herself on the wrong side of the road, following blindly because it was easier than raising uncomfortable questions, placing misguided duty ahead of those she cared for.

Ritsuko had made it all too clear when she had explained about the Emerald Tablet that Asuka's life had no intrinsic value on its own. She was a lab rat, a disposable experiment that could be discarded after it ran out of usefulness.

Misato shuddered. She still found it hard to believe Ritsuko had been capable of putting Asuka through that. At no point had she seemed to consider the young girl's health, or how something like this would affect her. Was Asuka, even now, damaged in some way? Would the contact with the Tablet scar her somehow, maybe permanently? Emotionally? The sort of thing nobody could test.

Another, more sickening thought occurred to her—what if Asuka's new-found happiness was, in fact, the result of this damage? No, her neural scans would pick that up. And Asuka would say something if she didn't feel right.

Sure, Misato chided herself, because Asuka always shared her feelings.

Putting the reasons for Asuka's happiness aside, the only good thing to come out of this situation was that learning the horrifying truth had forced Misato to make a decision.

"I owe these children a future," Misato said after a moment. "I'm not proud of a lot of things, and if I could go back and change what I've done I would. I can't. It shouldn't have come to this. I shouldn't have let it."

"I'm not sure how useful I can be," Nakayima said. He was, Misato knew, feeling very much the way she did, even if he couldn't bring himself to share it. Men were like that; they never said what they felt, obvious as it might be. "The deal I was hoping for was Miko and Keiko in exchange for an interview with you."

Misato had already thought as much."Call your people. I want to talk to them. You said you wanted to take the girls with you, to resign and go away. Tell them I want the same. I want to take the children to a place where they can just be children and be happy. It's my onus."

She didn't look at him at him as she said this, focusing instead on the huge pyramid in the distance. She had been amazed the first time she'd seen Central Dogma. The pyramid of concrete and steel had stood steadfastly as hell came down around it, becoming the final barrier before the end of the world. Now it seemed like such a meaningless thing, a tomb like its Egyptian counterparts, dead and empty. The way she felt inside.

"But what about piloting Eva?" Nakayima said. "What about the Angels?"

"Lies," Misato confessed. "The 17th Angel was the last. Something happened when the Chinese activated Unit-A that artificially created the following Angels—I'm sure now. The Emerald Tablet was part of it. Some sort of weaponized interface program for the Eva. When Unit-A became activated using it, it went berserk, corrupted by the program. Ritsuko said it could recombine DNA, I assume that's how it did it." She shook her head ruefully. "We were never able to fully identify any of the Angels after that. The waveform patterns never matched."

Nakayima was staring at her open-mouthed, his face caught between horror and disbelief.

"She put that thing in Unit-02 with Asuka as well," Misato continued, still refusing to look at him, her voice hard. "I swear she's done some awful things in her life, but I will never forgive her for that. I have no doubt that's what made Asuka attack Keiko. If it can destroy an entire city—"

"Excuse me, Major, are you saying NERV created these Angels?" Nakayima said understandably angry. "Half-a-million people died in Beijing."

If he wanted to blame her he could go right ahead, but Misato was through taking responsibility for other people's atrocities. She would point the finger right where it belonged. "Not NERV. Gendo Ikari did. Ritsuko Akagi did."

"And Keiko..." he trailed off, turning away and placing a hand on his head. "Oh, God." When he turned back there were tears in his eyes. Misato kept her gaze on the distance, fearing that actually seeing him break down would have the same effect on her. "She's … she's crippled!"

Misato gave him a moment to get himself together. In a way, both Asuka and Shinji had been crippled as well, on the inside at least. Such a thing would never change her regard for them. "Is she worth any less to you?"

"What?" Nakayima lowered his hand, scowling as if she had just insulted him. "No, of course not."

"No one who had been touched by Eva remains unhurt. Shinji once told me that every time he got in the Eva, someone ended up getting hurt. I don't think he knew how close he was to the truth. The Eva might be the weapon of our salvation, but it hurts people. It's what it does. That is the real tragedy of the Evangelion."

Nakayima came closer, standing in front of her. "Can you prove any of this? About the Angels? About China?"

"I'm sure I can find a way," she said. "Even if I can't, you have my word. In certain circles that should be enough. And I have a lot more than that. I've been digging up dirt for months. Would you like to know what really happened during Second Impact?"

He shook his head. "Major, with this kind of information you can make any deal you want, with anybody. But it would be the end of NERV. The end of everything you've worked for."

"NERV is finished as it is—Ritsuko said so. I have given too much to this organization. Frankly, I feel it's time I take something back."

"What about the children?" Nakayima said. "Have you told them?"

Misato bit her lip. Conspiracy she could deal with, but this was much more sticky issue. "Not yet."

"Major, when I brought up the possibility of a deal, you asked me if I'd told Miko, and if I'd considered Keiko, and when I say no you called me selfish." He stepped in front of her, cutting off her view of Central Dogma. His face was set but not angry. "Are you really thinking of the children or are you doing this because you want payback?"

"It's not payback." Misato sighed. "Every time I see Shinji's face it's like something twists inside of me. Like a ball of guilt and pain and sadness just rolling around in my stomach. And he's in love now. Despite everything he has been through, all the horrible things he's been forced to do, he's fallen in love. Asuka too. They deserve a chance. I can give them that. I have to give them that. Even if I have to sell my soul. What more can I do? I can't just let things continue the way they are."

She knew from the look of sympathy on his face that she didn't need to say or explain anything else. He had the same reasons. "I'll make the call right away," he said. "It'll probably take a few days to make arrangements."

"Thank you." Misato sensed a new determination growing within her. "Not that it will make me change my mind, but who exactly are your people anyway?"

"His name is Hidetoshi Sato. An old friend of my father. He is Echelon's man in Kyoto."

Misato furrowed her brow. "American? British? Canadian?"

"American," Nakayima confirmed and seemed shocked at the sardonic grin that spread across her face.

"Of course." But something had clicked in Misato's head—something she'd read on a personal dossier a long time ago that just maybe could give some added leverage. America had changed a lot since Second Impact in order to survive, like all empires before her. But one thing remained the same: America took care of those she considered her own. Now she could use that in her favor.

"I need to look for something," Misato told Nakayima. "Please let me know as soon as you hear from this Sato guy. The longer we take on this the higher the chance of being exposed and ending up dead." She paused, knowing this was a compromise she could not back out of. Her mind was made up. "We work for each other now."

* * *

"Hey, Stupid Shinji, pay attention!"

"I'm paying attention!" Shinji's eyes snapped open and he sat a little straighter on the tiny wooden bench as Asuka came back into the changing room holding a two piece red swimsuit.

Strangely, he did not remember dozing off, just closing his eyes because he was bored. What he did remember was agreeing to go shopping with her after school and thinking it would be a good idea. He'd considered that it wouldn't take very long, as there weren't many shops left in the city, but the sheer amount of time it took for Asuka to pick something, ask his opinion, change in and out of it, and pick something else had convinced him he'd made a huge mistake.

He had also miscalculated the fact that her NERV ID gave her unlimited access to the mass transit system, and so the shopping wasn't limited by something as trivial as geography.

"Well, what about this one?" Asuka held the out the swimsuit for him to look at—it was little more than several triangular patches of strategically placed material, held together by some string.

Though there probably was a law somewhere forbidding girls of Asuka's age to wear something so revealing, Shinji was smart enough to know what the answer was. "Uh, it looks good."

"That's what you said last time!" Asuka fixed him with a huffy frown and threw her arm around the fitting room, where the clothes she had already tried and rejected lay discarded in big piles. "You like everything, even the ugly stuff! Come on, what's the use in having a man around if he never has an opinion?"

Shinji remembered the pink blouse she had tried on before, now crumpled in a heap beneath her bare feet. "It did look good!" he said in his own defense. "It's not my fault!"

"Idiot!" Asuka shifted her weight and pointed a finger. "You are an elite Eva pilot. You should be more discriminating!"

She had him there—his taste in clothes was as mundane as hers was flamboyant. Yet another contradiction in their personalities; Asuka dressed to attract attention, Shinji wished to avoid doing just that.

"Besides, don't you think it's a little..." Hoping she would get the idea, he held up his thumb and index finger about an inch from each other.

Asuka raised the bikini for inspection.

"But it's really fashionable," she mussed, a hand on her hip. After the pink blouse she had gone back to her school uniform. She stood there with her shirt untucked and only enough buttons done to cover her bra, the shoulder straps of her jumper hanging down at her sides. Both sleeping better and eating more healthy, there were no longer any visible signs of her previous condition.

"And, um, you already have a bikini," Shinji reminded her. Against all odds, he might actually win this argument.

"I look like a little girl wearing that thing." Asuka pouted. "This one is for women. And it doesn't have that damn zipper on the top."

That was probably meant as a convenient easy access feature, Shinji thought shamelessly. His mind quickly provided him a reference picture of her posing in her candy-striped two-piece bikini, and totally disagreed about the looking like a little girl part.

"But you look really good in your old one," Shinji said. "And the colors, eh, kinda suit you, too. I may not know anything about fashion, but I know what I like. And if it still fits you I don't see why you should go change it."

"Yeah, you are right," Asuka said, to Shinji's satisfaction. Then she broke the spell by adding, "You don't know anything about fashion. I'm gonna try it on."

Her golden-red hair flaring behind her, she slipped into one of the small stalls separated from the main area by curtains. She drew the curtain, hiding her from view. "While you wait," she called from within the stall, "would you mind cleaning up? This place is a mess."

Shinji rose tiredly to his feet, sighing. He picked up whatever she'd rejected off the floor, quite a few items, folding some of them and hanging the rest on the rack behind him if he could find hangers. All the while he could hear Asuka moving around in the stall, undressing. The curtain that separated it was short, leaving a small gap open were he could see her long, shapely legs stepping out of her skirt. He quickly turned around, not daring to peek.

He was working on getting a skirt back into the plastic clips of a hanger when Asuka drew open the curtain.

Shinji immediately felt heat rising to his cheeks as the blood in his body rushed to his head.

It was worse than he thought—the bikini might have looked sexy on a fully-grown woman, but on someone as young as her it looked downright obscene; the triangles on the top were not even big enough to cover her modest, still-budding breasts, and the bottom was held in place by strings tied up below her hips, and slung so low it almost showed … her.

Forget about her actually wearing that in public, how was he supposed to stand next to her while she wore it? People would think she was some kind of exhibitionist, and who knew what they would think of him!

Unable to find words to describe such embarrassment, Shinji just stared.

"What?" Asuka looked down at herself. "It covers everything, right?"

And then she turned around.

Shinji made a choking noise as his face colored beet red to the point it matched the glossy neural connectors nestled in Asuka's hair. The back of the bikini, if it could even be called that, was just a string vanishing between the round cheeks of her bare bottom, which were left completely exposed. In fact, aside from the the strings holding the bikini together and her hair, there was nothing actually covering her. For anyone seeing her from behind, she might as well have been naked.

Asuka pressed her lips thoughtfully. "Your face is really red," she said innocently. "Is that a good sign?"

More like a sign that he was going to start shooting blood out of his nose like a cartoon. That, or have a heart attack.

"I … I don't think ..." Shinji stammered, holding the hanging skirt in front of him as if that would somehow cover her. "It's … um …"

"Or maybe not." Asuka returned to the stall, a light bound on her steps. Her breasts swayed in the precarious grasp of the bikini top. The movement of her bare buttocks and the clenched string between acted as a shameful magnet for his gaze. Giving him a final mischievous grin, she drew the curtain behind her. By then, the image of her near-nude body was burned in his mind.

The next time she emerged she was again hastily dressed in her uniform, the lewd bikini balled up in one hand. "Well, I guess that takes care of me," she said, tossing the bikini aside. "That just leaves you."

Shinji was still staring, his face only slightly less red than before, and didn't quite catch that. "W-what?"

"You, stupid!" Asuka shoved a finger against his collarbone, then flicked it down, signaling his school uniform. "Boring stuff was fine for you when you were on your own, but I won't be caught dead next to someone so dull. I have standards. So we are going to have to do something about your wardrobe."

Shinji fidgeted. "But—"

That was a far as he got before Asuka snatched the skirt and hanger out of his hands, grabbed him by the wrist and shoved him into the stall. "No buts!"

He tried to resist mostly out of instinct, knowing all the while it was a battle, like many others when it came to Asuka, that he could not win.

"Take off your clothes," she said, shutting the curtain and leaving him alone in the tiny space. "I'll go pick something out for you."

Shinji stood there dumbstruck for a moment. Looking around he noticed the stall was not as messy as the fitting room outside. There was a small rack on the far wall on which Asuka had hung the outfits she liked enough, which included some shirts and short white dress with red frills along the hem and ribbon-style shoulder straps. Her shoes were carefully placed in the corner, the socks stuffed inside. A full-length mirror hung on the wall to his left.

He caught his reflection and felt even more awkward and out of place. He didn't want to do this, but would there be any point in telling Asuka?

Shinji sighed heavily, watching himself deflate in the mirror, pale blue eyes that had seen too much sadness closing briefly. He didn't have a choice, did he? It was easier to give in than argue with Asuka, as it was to give in to Misato even if he didn't want to hear what she had to say. His life, he thought, was run by others. Moving on automatic, following the redhead's instructions, he began to undress.

Being far more careful with his uniform than Asuka was with hers, Shinji hung up his trousers and shirt on hangers, then placed his sneakers next to her shoes. He returned to the mirror wearing only his underwear. He always preferred briefs over boxers. Standing there, almost naked, he was struck by how his body had started to change. Despite his timid personality and usually submissive manner, he was not overtly scrawny. Halfway through adolescence, the combination of Eva training and his slender frame had resulted in a rather fit trim, which he had somehow failed to notice.

Shinji felt goosebumps as the cool air hit his skin. Seeing himself made him awfully self-conscious. Barefoot, the carpeted floor of the fitting room felt strangely cold. He brushed a hand through his short brown hair, feeling sheepish and embarrassed just to be there, and, above everything else, very uncomfortable. Then he heard Asuka on the other side.

His heart skipped a beat.

"Asuka, wait!" he cried out, cowering hurriedly with his arms across his bare chest in the same way a girl would. "Don't open the curtain!"

Asuka's response was an incensed "What?" as if the idea of humiliating him were a new concept. This was followed by her slinging some clothes over the top of the curtain rod. The curtain itself remained thankfully closed.

Shinji reached up for the clothes she had selected and dressed quickly. He looked at himself in the mirror again. The boy he saw standing in front of him not only seemed slightly older than he felt, but also much more handsome—vastly more. Asuka had picked out a nice white collared shirt with a blue stripe running down the left side and blue sleeves. He wore it over a pair of khaki cargo shorts with blue lining inside the pockets. Somehow, she had guessed his size perfectly.

"You done?" Asuka's voice came from beyond the curtain.

He almost missed it, so engrossed was he on his reflection. "Y-yeah," he murmured. "You can open it."

The curtain drew open and Asuka stood there, her eyes moving up and down his body appraising, the grin on her face broadening with every inch her gaze took in. Arms folded across her chest, she seemed very pleased. "I knew you could pull it off. Pretty handsome, huh?"

Shinji blushed at the compliment, looking away from her and reaching up self-consciously to tug at the button of his collar. "Yeah," he managed shyly. "Thanks."

"You really don't give yourself enough credit, Third Child." Asuka stepped inside, joining his side to look at their reflections on the mirror.

Shinji almost gasped at the sight—there was a couple looking back at them, a redheaded teenage girl with blazing blue eyes standing next to the brown-haired boy he had seen before. They looked so strange together, and yet there they were, boyfriend and girlfriend. But even those terms failed to describe what he saw. Standing with her like this just seemed like a dream.

Asuka's thoughts must have been on similar lines. Her hand moved in the mirror to take his, as if needing the physical reassurance. The image was still so unreal, and he felt so detached from it, that despite seeing her, the touch of her hand came as surprise. He jerked instinctively but she held on tightly, her face turning suddenly serious.

A knot of worry formed on Shinji's stomach. "I-I'm sorry," he said sheepishly. "I'm still new at this, um, touching thing. It's just …"

"It's not that." Asuka's voice was flat, the emotions behind it carefully controlled. "But … well, there's something I want to talk to you about. It's important."

Shinji took a awkward gulp to prevent the knot from moving further up. "A-Asuka?"

"Come with me."

She pulled him out of the stall, turned him around and pushed him back onto the bench he had occupied before. Then she stood in front of him in her usual 'big girl' pose, feet firmly planted and apart, hands on hip. The expression on her face remained very serious.

Asuka took a deep breath. "I know this is going to sound crazy," she started, "and maybe I am crazy. I don't know. But I thought I should tell you because we are both Eva pilots and because of something you said before—when I asked you what your Eva felt like. Do you remember what I said?"

Shinji nodded, then added, "You said it was empty."

"Are you stupid? I said it felt empty." She dropped her eyebrows into a scowl. "I don't exactly know why it felt that way, but I know it isn't. Because …" she paused, and suddenly she didn't seem sure at all. "Do you remember what you said your Eva felt like?"

"Nice," Shinji recalled, wondering where she was going with this. They hadn't talked much about their Evas, and with good reason considering the last battle.

"After that! You said it felt like a mother's embrace, remember?"

"Yeah." He also remembered she had seemed quite upset after that, though, of course, she gave no explanation.

Asuka tensed her shoulders, lifting up her nose as she tilted her head back, giving her an air of authority. "Shinji, I think I know why it feels that way. During the last battle—I don't know what happened, but I saw a lot of awful things. It was just like another nightmare. Something was trying to hurt me, to break me. But I killed it. And then …" she stopped again and Shinji could actually see her courage wavering. "I saw my mother inside Unit-02."

I saw my mother inside Unit-02 …

Shinji stared up at her, repeating those last words in his head as he tried to make sense of them. He knew that they didn't—they couldn't. Asuka's mother was dead, the same as his. She had said as much; cried for her in her sleep.

And yet it did not sound crazy at all. A part of him wasn't even surprised, as if she were simply giving words to a feeling he himself had long ago. During the last battle he had felt something as well, the same sensation he always thought protected him in the entry-plug, a kind of soothing warmth. And he heard her voice. She, whether his mother or just Unit-01, had wanted to save him, and when he refused he felt its grief over him.

Once he had spent a whole month trapped inside Eva, and while he had forgotten most of the experience, now that he focused on the sensations attached to it Shinji found he could recall it very clearly—the sensations had names and occupied very well defined places in his heart. He had been too young before his mother died and so could not remember that part of the connection, but Unit-01 felt like he thought his own mother had.

Had he always known? Right from the very first time he piloted Eva?

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" Asuka piped up, bringing him out of his thoughts. Her uncertainty quickly boiled into anger. "Well, fine. Sorry I said anything!"

Shinji lifted his gaze, which had slipped to the floor without him realizing it. "No, I …"

"You what?" Asuka's thin eyebrows were so close together they made a V in the middle of her forehead. She expected more of him.

Shinji let his features sag into a sullen expression. "I-I think you might be right," he managed, somehow. "Unit-01, it—she, I think. She feels like … " he drew a blank, unable to find the right words, or indeed any words, and shook his head helplessly.

"Your mother?" Asuka asked, her harsh manner easing a bit as she recognized how hard this was for him.

Shinji nodded silently, an empty ache in his chest reminding him of that person who had been missing from his life for so long, whom he desperately wanted to be with again. For some reason he didn't understand, he couldn't just tell Asuka that.

"Do you think it's really possible?"

"I don't know."

Asuka gestured impatiently. "Well, don't you know how the Evas are supposed to work?"

"Do you?" Answering a question with a question—as if she didn't think he was stupid enough already.

But, for once, Asuka didn't have an answer. She seemed as lost as he felt. Her hands moved away from her hip as her posture changed, the confidence draining out of it like so much fake pretense.

The silence bothered him. He brought his legs up, pressing his knees against chest protectively and wrapping his arms around them. His voice sounded impossibly small the next time he spoke. "I don't want to talk about this."

He was ready for her to call him a little boy again, because right then and there he knew he was. The handsome young man he had seen in the mirror didn't really exist. He was just a boy, afraid and lonely and lost.

"Are you depressed now?" Asuka was serious but not reproachful. "Because I made you talk about your mother?"

He said nothing.

Asuka regarded him sternly for a moment, then sighed loudly and sat on the bench next to him. She leaned close. "Do you want to know what my Mama was like?"

In that withdrawn manner he frequently adopted when feeling put-upon, Shinji could not even bring himself to nod or shake his head in response. But as long as she was the one talking he wouldn't have to, and so he hoped she would continue.

"She was the prettiest woman I've ever known," Asuka's voice turned airy, almost dreamy. "But she was smart, too. Of course, she would have to be to work for NERV." Her warmth moved in on him comfortably as she placed a hand on his shoulder, making him flinch. "What about yours?"

Her other hand worked its way on top his. Without any conscious thought on his part, his fingers spread open and interlaced with hers. She wasn't demanding to know, at least that was the sense he got. Asuka demanded lots of things and constantly, but this was not one of them. She wanted him to share this with her, perhaps because she thought it was important or simply out of curiosity.

Holding her hand, Shinji tried to put a lifetime of emotions into words.

"I was too young to remember very well," he said sullenly. "But I think … she was the kindest person I've ever met. Her smile always made me happy. Made me want to smile." He rubbed his free hand over his eyes, just in case. But there were no tears. Surprisingly, the memories were not sad ones, just emotional and powerful. He thought again Asuka might make fun of him.

Instead she asked, "Do you miss her."

Shinji missed her a lot, and now that he was talking about her he missed her more than he had in a long time, but rather than say it he dipped his head behind his knees.

"I miss my Mama, too." Asuka squeezed his hand. "I'm glad I'm not the only one. But, you know, she told me once I was special. I took it to heart. So I spent most of my life trying to be special, and when I couldn't it was like a part of me died—whatever part was left after I lost her. I didn't want to live anymore. But I was wrong. I'm not too proud to admit that. I understand better now. She's the one that made me special. And that is not something I can ever lose. I think your mother made you special, too."

When he said nothing, she pulled his hand towards her until it was pressed against her chest. "Shinji, look at me."

Shinji lifted his head and focused his gaze on her. The smile showing on her face was so beautiful he could hardly comprehend it.

"We didn't lose them, stupid," Asuka said. "We never did. They were always there, always looking after us. That's how it felt, isn't it? We were just too hurt to know what that feeling was. Kinda like with each other. We're just really bad at this sort of thing."

"But—"

"Don't get me wrong." She cut him off, and for once he was thankful she did because he had no idea what he wanted to say. "I was so happy to get a chance to see her again. I would have stayed with her if I could have. But she sent me back. And I promised her that I would try to be happy here, too. And that's exactly what I'm going to do."

Shinji understood at last—the way she had been behaving since the battle, how things that would have infuriated her before now seemed like minor offenses, how she was more talkative and open and generally approachable, and much more likeable. It didn't mean she was magically happy, or that all she had been through had been forgotten, or that the terrible wounds she suffered, emotional and otherwise, had healed. She would always be scarred on the inside. The same as him.

He looked around at the messy fitting room and it was as though he saw it for the first time. This was part of Asuka's idea of happiness, he realized. And she had included him in it.

Suddenly going shopping with her didn't seem so tiresome.

A few nights ago Misato had told him he might never know what Asuka wanted out of their relationship. She meant well, but she was wrong. He did know. Asuka just wanted to be happy with him, and even if perhaps such a thing was ultimately impossible, she was determined to try. And if she could, so could he. Because he wanted to be happy with her as well.

He was sure his own mother, wherever she was, would approve. She might even be proud of him. His chest felt a little fuller.

Sensing the change in his mood, Asuka stood up. Still holding his hand, she pulled him up after her. "So," she pouted innocently, "you really don't like the bikini?"

His pale blue eyes flickered with confusion.

Talking to her about his mother had hardly set him at ease. Many issues were yet to be resolved between them, and maybe they would never be—the mystery with their Evas being only one. But he felt that he had found a kind of soothing reassurance in their shared past and loss. Of Asuka and the girl she was, of her companionship, or their bond through their Evas.

Apparently, however, that epiphany did not extend to her taste in swimwear. Probably for the best. There was no telling what she could get away with if he left it up to her. "Um... no, it's just too …"

The redhead considered, lips pressed thoughtfully. "How about I don't wear it in public? That's what bothers you, right?"

"Not in public?" Shinji repeated, his throat going dry at the thought of her lounging around the apartment wearing such a skimpy thing. But she obviously wanted the bikini, and it was better than the alternative. "Okay."

"It's a deal." Asuka grinned victoriously, having once again gotten her way. Then she looked him over again. "You look really good in those clothes. Are you gonna keep them?"

How could he not? After all, she picked them for him. Had he been a little more daring he might have kissed her in gratitude. He settled for squeezing her hand, and she squeezed back. "Yeah. I like them."

"Alright. I knew you had to have some sense in that thick head of yours."

Only Asuka could insult and flatter him at the same time, and only because it was her did he not feel offended. He held her hand just a little longer, until she loosened her grip. As they separated they let their fingers brush together to the very last moment.

Asuka had a faint rosy flush on her cheeks Shinji had not noticed before as she picked up the bikini, examining it again. "It's so tiny," she murmured absently. "But I've made up my mind."

So she had, Shinji thought. And it would likely provide her with lots of amusement at his expense. She might as well be buying herself a new toy.

Just then, as if reading his mind, Asuka checked him out with the corner of her eyes. Something mischievous flickered in the depths of those astonishing sapphire-blue orbs. "Besides, we already decided I'm not going to wear it in public."

It was Shinji's turn to blush now … again.

He wisely decided to change the subject before the redhead had a chance to tease him any further. "I think we should pay for something before they kick us out," he suggested, looking around at the big mess they—mostly Asuka—had made.

"Yeah, okay."

They took turns changing back into their uniforms. Asuka went first, of course, fixing herself up and putting on her shoes. After she was done, she waited only long enough for Shinji to pass her the shirt and shorts over the curtain rod then went ahead to pay for their things. Shinji stayed behind to finish changing and clean up the fitting room, lest they be banned from ever returning to this store.

She was waiting for him at the front of the store ten minutes later holding their bags, which she promptly pushed into his arms with a smirk. Unthinkable that she would have to carry her own purchases, Shinji thought. They walked outside, beyond the air-conditioned confines of the store.

The sun was setting slowly in the west. The street, dyed a surreal orange by the last rays, bustled with people heading to and from. An hour-long train ride away, Asuka had brought Shinji far enough that the devastation of Tokyo-3 seemed like a different world altogether. Here people still had lives to live.

In typical fashion, the first thing Asuka did was complain. "Mein Gott, how can it be this hot this late in the day?" She fanned herself with her hand. "I hate sweating!"

"It's not just the heat, it's the humidity," Shinji explained, for entirely unexplainable reasons. "All that water in the lakes, millions of cubic tons, gets stuck in the atmosphere—"

"There's no such thing as a cubic ton, stupid." Asuka made an annoyed face. "And I wasn't actually asking you."

Shinji shrugged. "I'm just saying. It's all about the cycle of water and—"

"Give it a rest," Asuka said in her most high-pitched voice. "I refuse to be seen with such a dork. You don't want to be a dork when you are with me, do you?" She looped her arm under his and drew him to her, trapping him against her flank.

For a brief second, Shinji's reflex caused him to tense against her touch. But, unlike before, Asuka didn't seem the least bit upset and the sensation promptly evaporated. "I guess not," he said.

Asuka picked up her pace, tugging his arm insistently. "Keep up!"

Easy for her to say, Shinji thought. She wasn't the one carrying all their bags. But he let her lead him down the sidewalk without protest—home or to the next shop, it didn't matter. He had never felt more content to follow her anywhere she went. And so they hurried along, just two more smiling children in the crowd.

* * *

Beyond the observation window, the large cube-shaped vault was flooded with LCL. Secured by heavy reinforced steel cables, Unit-02 stood in the middle, visible through the misty red liquid. Most of its armor was taken off, leaving the brownish flesh underneath exposed above the thin waist all the way to its collar, its spherical core glinting as it protruded from its chest. But it was not the core that attracted Ritsuko Akagi's attention. Rather, it was the tiny, strange tumor-like structure above the core that bore scrutiny.

There had never been any doubt in her mind that the Emerald Tablet could alter the Eva's DNA at a very fundamental level. Her mother's notes had made it clear that its understanding of the genome and its string sequencing extended far beyond anything NERV could manipulate. Yet despite having seen the Tablet turn three Evangelions into monsters and knowing that it was possible, she had still been surprised to find it had somehow managed to produce a functional, although primitive, S2 engine.

In theory, as long as there was sufficient biological material, an Evangelion could regenerate missing parts—Unit-01 had used part of the 14th Angel to regenerate a missing arm, for example. The Tablet did not seem to have that constraint. S2 Engines couldn't be created out of nothing, at least not by any engineering methods NERV possessed. But the Eva carried in its genome the genetic instructions to create one.

Unit-A had been under the Tablet's control long enough that its S2 engine was nearly fully-developed, but by the time Ritsuko got to it, it had deteriorated to dust; Unit-08 had been ripped apart much too quickly to allow any development; Unit-02, however, had been altered just enough to produce something that, so far, seemed stable enough.

As she watched, half a dozen divers came into view, carrying between them six large metal needles attached to cables.

"Move the probes to insertions points along the up-down axis," Ritsuko ordered. "Give me a voltage check when you are done."

Behind her, two technicians gave their acknowledgment. The divers swam into positions, placing the needles in a straight vertical line going from the top of the tumor, which was roughly the size of a human torso. Ritsuko had been worried about possible damage to the S2 engine, but over the last week this was the best method she could come up with.

"Probes are in place," one of the technicians said. "Voltage is nominal, well within established safety parameters."

Ritsuko nodded; it was what she expected. Although the intelligence behind it had disappeared, the biological changes created by the Tablet remained functional because Unit-02 remained functional. Having already reloaded its operating system from scratch, buffered the neural interface and isolated anything else that might produce feedback, the actual biological components were the only carryover from the battle. Unit-01 assimilating an S2 engine by eating it was the equivalent of receiving an organ transplant, but this was more like growing your own organs.

She could, of course, have it removed—Unit-02 with unlimited power would be as fearsome a weapon as Unit-01, and maybe more so given its pilot's tendencies towards battle and violence. But Ritsuko wasn't worried about that. The Eva's biggest weakness was not its limited power supply.

"Asuka will be delighted," Ritsuko said, turning to the technicians behind her. "I see no reason to keep Unit-02 in lock down any longer. Unit-01 will retain combat priority until we have successfully reactivated Unit-02."

The technicians exchanged worried glances. Ritsuko knew that the idea of rearming Unit-02 did not sit well with a lot of people. Some, she suspected, resented Asuka herself more than they did her Eva, but such emotions were harbored out of ignorance. Keeping Unit-02 down here was impractical and Ritsuko had other things to worry about.

* * *

Shinji looked up from his homework on the living room table just as Misato walked out of her room, zipping the back of her cocktail dress as she went. Sitting next to him, Asuka looked up as well. She had volunteered to help, in her own way, and for the last twenty minutes had been doing little more besides twirling a pencil in her fingers while he scratched his against the paper and pointing out mistakes.

Pen-pen also looked, but he was not interested and went back to the program on the television.

"What do you think?" Misato said, striking a pose in front of them and smoothing out the sides of the dress with her hands. "I haven't worn this in so long. Does it still fit?"

"You look … nice, Misato." Shinji stared at her chest, exactly the effect the its designers had had in mind. The tight fit lifted up her already-plentiful bosom, enhancing the round shapes to proportions that would catch anyone's eyes. The dress was also very short, only coming down to about a inch short of mid-thigh.

Asuka mumbled something, and then quickly returned to pretending she was helping with Shinji's homework. And just to make sure Shinji did so too, she nudged him forcefully. "Divide the coefficient by the exponent after you add one to it, stupid, not before."

Shinji turned his attention back to his homework but not before it lingered on Misato just another second. "Okay, thanks."

Misato looked them over closely, and Shinji could tell she was amazed at the manner they had come to adopt with one another. There had been so much unspoken grief, and resentment, and just plain hurt, that any kind of understanding seemed utterly impossible. Not so long ago most of their interaction were done by yelling and they could hardly stand to be in the same room with each other. Even after Asuka had come back from the hospital, the downward cycle of alienation and hostility continued, finally coming to head that terrible night when he told her he hated her.

Just thinking about that was painful for Shinji. He still wished he could take those words back, though he knew that would never happen. Their recent closeness had blunted some of the edge that existed previously between them, but if he got to be with Asuka forever, he would always regret saying that.

"Don't stay up too late." Misato said finally. "I'll be out for a while. Asuka, make sure he finishes his homework."

"Yeah, yeah," Asuka said, not looking up. "Whatever. Shinji couldn't do integrals without me. Where are you going, anyway?"

"Um, Asuka, I don't think ..." Shinji started uncomfortably, working on another math problem.

"That's it's any of our business?" Asuka finished angrily for him. "She's our guardian. Leaving us and not saying where she's going is borderline neglect. And what if there were an Angel attack? We wouldn't be able to find her."

Misato, to her credit, took Asuka's belligerence in stride. "Oh, just need to do some work related stuff," she explained patiently. "If you need me, just call my cellphone. Hopefully, the Angels won't be pesky enough to attack for the next few hours."

"Work?" Asuka snorted loudly. "Dressed like that, you must be moonlighting in a brothel."

"Jealous much?" Still not looking at her, Shinji heard the playfulness in Misato's voice.

"Hardly."

"Well, little missy, you just remember that oversized t-shirt you are wearing isn't so oversized on me."

"I'm still growing!" Asuka piped up indignantly, glaring up at her guardian. "You, on the other hand, have nothing to look forward to except a losing fight with gravity. It's just a matter of time. Shinji was just staring out of shock at your utter lack of modesty. Tell her, Shinji."

Predictably, Shinji said nothing, pressing his lips together and finding a problem on the sheet that looked particularly interesting. Asuka punched him on the shoulder.

He rubbed his arm. "Ouch."

Misato rolled her eyes. "Asuka, don't hit him. One of these days he's going to hit you back."

Shinji smiled shakily, hoping Asuka didn't think to preempt such a move by hitting him some more. Misato had no idea how unpredictable she could be. Asuka heaved a sigh and leaned heavily on her elbows, her brow draw into that familiar scowl.

But, while he recognized the way he got along with Asuka was hardly very healthy, there just didn't seem to be any real malice to her attacks anymore. Certainly nothing like how she had been before and after her breakdown. Even when she was being difficult now, or when she was calling him names, there seemed to be a lightheartedness to her, as if she didn't expect any of the insults or the hitting to be taken seriously. She was just being herself, and that didn't really bother him anymore.

It was the kind of insight gained through great pain. He had grown a lot lately, and Asuka had grown with him. And seeing the two of them together, he knew, affected Misato deeply. Asuka might still have her doubts, but their guardian cared for them very much. Almost as if they were her own children. Shinji could never think of her as a mother; surely, however, she was the next best thing.

Misato bid them a good night. As she stepped into the kitchen, on her way to the front door, Shinji saw her off, catching a last glimpse of her. Then he heard the door opening and closing.

Asuka waited for Misato to leave before pouncing. She took Shinji's notebook away from him, throwing it aside, and in a burst of energy pushed down on his shoulders until she was pinning him to the ground besides the table. As a feeble protest escaped his lips, she climbed on top of him, straddling his waist and holding him down firmly.

"You thought you'd get away with that, huh?" she grumbled, her brow a deep scowl.

Lying on his back like this, her weigh holding him down and making him very much aware of both their bodies, it was a miracle Shinji could come up with anything at all to say. "Um, uh, what do you mean?"

"You drooling over her like that!"

"But I was just ..." Shinji swallowed nervously. He had to try hard to keep his eyes on hers and not let them wander. In this position her loose shirt hung of her body, revealing more pale skin that was normally visible, and for some reason her slender neck and the little hollow of her collarbone had become incredibly inviting. And below that ...

"Not even you are THAT stupid," Asuka growled. "Is my body not good enough? You think I'm ugly or immature or something?"

Shinji shook his head as emphatically as he could, his cheeks a bright red with embarrassment. "Asuka, no. You're not—I wasn't—I just kinda noticed she had a nice dress. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Wouldn't you rather have me in that dress?" Asuka shifted her weight onto one of his shoulders, freeing a hand which she used to brush away locks of his dark hair from his forehead and then stroked his cheek gently—much more gentle than she would normally be. "Or would you rather have me naked?"

Her hands were warm against the sensitive skin of his face. It felt so good, as did the weight of her body on his.

Shinji squirmed. "I'm sor—"

"I know," Asuka said, placing two fingers over his lips to quiet him. "You never mean to do anything wrong. You wouldn't have to apologize so much if you actually used your head. I mean, how the hell did you think you ogling her like that would make me feel?"

Shinji's throat worked its way around a hard lump, but he didn't say anything.

"Of course you didn't think, because you are just an idiot." Asuka looked down at him, her face increasingly more thoughtful by the second.

It seemed to Shinji that she was trying to make up her mind about something.

"You know, I said all those things this afternoon because I thought I could trust you," Asuka said after a moment. "I wouldn't want to think I made a mistake." She forced herself to smirk, but the gesture lacked its usual audacity. "You probably think this is easy for me—you think maybe I've read too many magazines and seen too many TV shows. It's nothing like that."

Though Asuka had obviously wanted to tease him, Shinji realized she was also upset in a way he had thus far failed to understand. And she was trying to tell him without having to tell him.

What could he say? He was supposed to be there for her, but how could he when he had no idea what was going through her mind?

"Do you remember how things used to be between us?" Asuka asked.

Shinji nodded his answer.

As he did Asuka bent her head low, bringing her lips so close to his ear that he could feel her breath ticking him. "I don't blame you if you don't like going shopping with me," she said, "or if you think I'm just so shallow. But it's who I am."

"B-but I liked going shopping with you," he blurted out before he could help himself.

She pressed her fingers more firmly against his lips. "Shut up, stupid."

He fell quiet.

"Things have changed between us," Asuka continued, "but I haven't. I'm still me. And that means I won't share you with anyone. Not Misato, no matter what she's wearing, and certainly not Rei. There is no room for compromise in my heart. It's all or nothing. And if I can't have that, then I don't want anything from you."

She moved her fingers away, and he understood she wanted him to speak now.

"Rei is my friend," he whispered. He had to say it—Asuka might just be jealous of Misato, but Rei …

Asuka's face twitched. "I don't like her. She's too weird. Too obedient. But I can't make you stop being her friend," she said, her voice a low, reluctant growl. Then she sighed. "It's never been romantic, right?"

If the definition of 'romantic' were the feelings he had for Asuka, then no, his feelings for Rei had never been romantic; she was more like a family member. Shinji shook his head.

"Did you kiss her?" she asked.

Another shake.

The look on Asuka's face was half relief and half annoyance. "I guess I'll have to trust you on that. But if you EVER betray me ..." she let her threat trail off. "As long as I have you for myself I'll be happy—only for myself. Because you belong to me. If you have a problem with that, now is the time to say it."

"I want to make you happy," Shinji said, the words coming out of his mouth before he could think them and for once they felt right.

Or at least he thought so. But then Asuka pulled herself away and smacked him on the chest.

"Ow!" Shinji groaned at the sudden, dull pain, his upper body rolling to the side as he clutched the spot where she had hit him. Wincing, he looked up at her. "What was that for?"

"So you don't forget!" Asuka yelled, pushing him roughly onto his back and pinning him with her hands on his shoulders. Then she laid down on top of him again, her weight flattening her small breasts very noticeably against his chest. "This could work," she murmured in his ear. "Being on the bottom suits you. And don't you ever dare tell me I'm too heavy."

She was a little heavy, but he wasn't about to say it. He was not that stupid.

Asuka turned her head this way and that, nuzzling him as if he were a cushion. She seemed to get tired of that pretty quickly. "Do something."

Like what, Shinji almost asked. He felt lost. She was the one leading their relationship and, as their previous discussion proved, he didn't have a clue. He would rather play things safe and just lay like this for a while, but he knew he didn't have much of a choice. Asuka wouldn't tell him to do something if she didn't want him to, which she obviously did.

There was nothing else for it. He had to guess and hope it wasn't a mistake. Mustering his courage like he often did when he was about to charge an Angel with his Eva, he put his arms around her, slowly so that she would get a chance to protest if he got it wrong.

Instead of pulling away and yelling at him, Asuka relaxed in his embrace, melting in their shared warmth. He held her a little more tightly.

Once upon a time he would have been so terrified of her that any such act of closeness would be unthinkable. All he could have done was to leave her to suffer alone. And she would have hated him for it. He completely misunderstood the nature of her emotions; not hatred but pain, not hostility but loneliness, not arrogance but a desire to be needed. And he needed her, more than he needed anything else in the world.

He would always be afraid of her, it was in his nature. The difference now was that he would not let that fear paralyze him. He could not—Asuka's happiness depended on it.

Neither said anything for a while. Both of them simply enjoyed the moment. Shinji was only vaguely aware that Pen-pen was watching them very carefully, perhaps thinking he was about to see a show. He tried not to mind.

Then, just when he had gotten used to the silence, the nosy penguin, and the steady beat of Asuka's heart through the thin materials of their shirts, he felt her tense. When she tried to lift herself up on her arms, he let her go. "Is something wrong?" he asked in puzzlement.

"I'm bored." Asuka looked down at him, her features serious. "Misato said she was gonna be out for a while. We could … you know."

Shinji looked at her in astonishment. Could she really be suggesting that they—

"I bet it's better than doing your stupid homework." This time her husky tone left no doubt as to her intentions. "Come on."

"I don't know." Shinji swallowed hard, growing distinctly uncomfortable and stiff.

"Fine, it's not a question then." Asuka seemed almost offended as she moved her hand up the side of his face and knotted her fingers in his hair. Shinji's hands moved loosely around her sides, not holding her but not pushing her away either.

He didn't want to push her away. He wanted this moment, and wanted what it meant.

"Okay," he said simply.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Third Child, but there's a part of me that just wants to scream right now." A strangely wistful smile crossed Asuka's face. "I'm learning to ignore it."

Before Shinji could say anything, Asuka shuffled back on her saddle … until she was sitting right atop the bulge in his shorts, now pressed firmly and somewhat uncomfortably against the mound between her legs. His mouth went dry, the flush of arousal and embarrassment turning his cheeks a bright, hot red. He couldn't take his eyes off hers. For such a mouthy girl, those blue orbs said more than any words ever could.

He saw desire there, obviously, but also loneliness and insecurity and all the things she could never tell him.

Shinji flinched and gave out a little squeak as Asuka ground her pelvis on him, placing more of her weight on his groin as if to remind him that, despite this being an act of mutual consent, she remained on top, in charge. But giving in always came naturally and easily for him, and so he did now like he had a million times in the past.

"God, Asuka ..."

"I like it when you say my name like that," Asuka purred, swiveling her pelvis again. "It sounds so special."

Shinji gasped, enjoying the pressure and motion of her body on his own. His heart raced wildly in his chest, making him aware of every throbbing beat, every hot pulse.

"Last chance to back out, Shinji," Asuka said, lowering herself over him. Her pretty features filled his vision; her breath tickled him; her fingers tensed in his hair and he had the feeling she was ready to tear it out should he give her the wrong answer.

"I-I'm not running away," Shinji stammered despite himself.

Asuka smiled sharply.

"No, I didn't think you would. You've always been braver than you look."

Shinji knew that wasn't really true. And when she finally brought her hungry lips down on his, he closed his eyes.

* * *

The night was warm and humid, the last remnants of heavy rainfall hanging in the air as a thick wet mist. Clouds layered the sky so there was neither moon nor stars. The chant of the cicadas filled the air. As Misato climbed into her vintage Renault Alpine she opened the glove compartment and retrieved a large manila enveloped. She placed it on the passenger's seat. Then she made sure to check her gun.

She was hoping for the best but there was no point in being foolhardy.

Nakayima had arranged to meet his man in a bar just off the main highway running between Tokyo-3 and the nearby town of Hakone just after midnight. From what Misato heard it was a fairly well traveled place, with a large neon sign on the front that demanded attention. It figured that this Sato would want to meet in a public place, and she offered no objection for the same reason. A public place meant fair safety. Nobody, not even the Americans, would dare try anything if there were witnesses involved.

And it always worked in every mobster and spy movie she could recall. Real life seldom imitated art, but when it did it was nice to have a blueprint to follow. She could probably get them seated by a window, too.

She had a few hours to kill, but that was not a problem. She had somewhere else she wanted to go. Pulling out of the building's parking lot, she drove to the nearest gate to the Geo-Front. Soon she was underground, the vast structures that made up Central Dogma illuminated with strings of light in the dark cavern appearing on her windshield. The domed ceiling above created a pitch black sky without any stars. The buildings that had made up Tokyo-3 downtown district remained inverted as work continued to drain out the lake above them created by Rei's detonation.

By Rei's death, Misato reminded herself.

Her destination was a small, out of the way melon patch located off an emergency road. She had not been coming here as often as she should have, and the melons had started to shrivel. Some were clearly dead already. In the beams of her headlamps they looked green and brown.

But she wasn't here to make amends for her neglect. Misato stayed in the car, her hands wrapped around her steering wheel. "Kaji," she murmured softly. "This is the right thing, isn't it?"

No answer. She hadn't expected any.

"You told me to move ahead. To look for the truth. I didn't. I stayed behind, and those I am responsible for suffered. It was up to me, but I didn't do anything. I failed Shinji. I failed Asuka. Everyone. I'm sure if you were here I would make you sick."

She leaned forward to lay her head against the steering wheel. "I told Shinji he might regret falling in love. But what I regret is not accepting that I was in love. I regret leaving you, and then I regret not being able to help. I'm sorry for a lot of things, and that's one of them. But maybe I still have time to make some of those things right. I need to do something. If I'm wrong I hope you forgive me. I hope Asuka and Shinji forgive me. This is all I can do."

She shut off the engine and waited. The beams of her headlight died and plunged the melon patch into darkness. Only the sound of cicadas filled the dry air. She wrapped her arms around herself, slumped over the wheel so tightly she was curled up into a ball.

She waited, checking the clock at regular intervals. She resisted the urge to call and check up on her children.

Her children—the thought brought a small smile to her face. It made the waiting easier; eased her doubts.

Finally, it was time. Misato straightened and started the car again.

The drive out of the Geo-Front took about thirty minutes, then another twenty to head out of town on the empty highway. Her sense of direction was famously bad, and often the butt of jokes among her staff, but Misato had no problem finding the right exit despite not being familiar with this area. The huge neon sign in purple and day-glow green helped, too.

Misato parked her car in front of the bar, a flat, elongated single-story building. Being careful to avoid a nearby puddle, she climbed off with the envelope and slipped her gun into her small purse. The heavy USP 9 took up most of the space. She made sure to iron out the wrinkles in her dress. Asuka could criticize her all she wanted, but there was a reason she picked such a revealing outfit: it would create the illusion that she was unarmed and exposed. However, it also meant she couldn't carry a weapon holstered on her person, as she would have liked.

As she walked along the sidewalk, heels clicking on the concrete, she noticed with a frown that there was someone sitting in one of the cars parked across the street, and the car, a black sedan, had government tags.

Looked like Mr. Sato had a backup.

Nakayima had said that he had agreed to come alone, but Misato hadn't really believed he would. He was bringing Miko, and with Misato, Sato was outnumbered and outgunned. And he had no more reason to trust them than they did him. It was a little reassuring, actually, to see that the guy was not stupid.

What she knew of Echelon didn't exactly inspire confidence. Largely a SIGINT outfit monitoring communications at the end of the 20th Century, they had been re-formed as the West's most secretive intelligence group.

Second Impact had brought a fundamental change in American foreign relations. Rather than trying to be the world's sole superpower, she became focused on the so-called America First policy. Her cooperation with the UN also provided a convenient cover. When she surrendered most of her surface fleet to the UN, for example, most people saw that as a sign of weakness. But the people who knew recognized those acts for what they were. America was consolidating, ridding herself of the cumbersome fat of military hegemony.

What emerged was a powerful economy, largely untouched by world events and even the massive casualties of Second Impact, fed by genetically engineered crops and livestock, and a compact, highly-specialized military force.

And while it was true that there was no room in the Post-Second Impact world for wasteful military interventions, when warlords in troublesome countries talked about boogie-men coming to get them, they meant Echelon and they didn't even know it. Echelon sat above the fray, never engaging directly, but planning missions, issuing orders. SFOD-D and SOCOM did all the dirty work and got all the glory and the bad press; Echelon was never mentioned, almost as if they didn't really exist.

But they did exist, and Misato was going to meet with them and get them to do what she wanted.

Nakayima and Miko were waiting for her at the bar's entrance. Misato felt a pang of nostalgia when she saw them together, remembering how Kaji and her used to spend whole nights out on the town. He was dressed casually in sneakers, jeans and a shirt—it was the first time she ever saw him out of his stuffy uniform. He was handsome, she couldn't lie to herself. Another place and another time there might have been something there. Not now. Miko looked like an experienced clubber: short skirt, pink blouse, makeup, and heels.

"Hello, Major," Nakayima greeted, waving her over.

"No ranks tonight, Nakayima," Misato replied. "Got that, Miko?"

The slender girl nodded. "Yes, ah … Miss Katsuragi."

"Misato please," Misato corrected. Then, turning to Nakayima, she asked, "You noticed our friend across the parking lot?"

To his credit, he did not try to look. "Yes. Probably backup. At least it makes sense, doesn't it?"

She nodded. "That's what I thought."

"Well, Americans are nothing if not cautious," Nakayima shrugged his shoulders. "Should we go inside?"

"You can spot the guy, so I'll be right behind you."

Nakayima had no objection to this. He led the way. Inside, the bar was dark and almost empty; there was no music playing only the clanging of glasses and bottles being passed around. The smell of alcohol and cigarettes was thick in the air. With Misato and Miko following, Nakayima looked around, carefully scanning the faces on the tables and booths and finally picked a direction towards the rear.

They ended up sitting across a short, middle-aged Japanese man, wearing a suit. He looked like the sort who would blend in anywhere, and aside from his clear gray-green eyes would have been indistinct from the hordes of salarymen everywhere around Japan.

"Major Katsuragi, it's so nice to meet you." The man rose to his feet and shook Misato's hand. "My name is Hidetoshi Sato. But I'm sure Junichi has already told you that."

"Very nice to meet you," Misato said as pleasantly as she could.

"And this lovely lady?" Sato asked, looking Miko over.

"Miko Mineguno," Nakayima said. "She's the guardian of the girl I mentioned before."

"Oh yes, such a terrible thing." His voice was full of sympathy, but his face remained neutral. "I gather our Unit-08 had something to do with it." He gave Misato a frown. "No offense, Major, but these Evangelions are dreadful things."

Misato was not about to disagree. She had more important things to discuss. "Lets get down to it, shall we?"

"Very well," Sato sat back on his chair, fixing his eyes squarely on Misato as the three of them took their seats across from him. "From what I understand, you want to offer me a deal. An offer I can't refuse, I suppose? I have to admit I did not expect that you would come. Why would you? You yourself have nothing to gain. My deal was for Nakayima and the girls."

Misato met his gaze with steely resolve. "I want another deal. I want asylum for myself, the Second Child, and the Third Child."

He laughed disbelievingly. "Major Katsuragi, NERV will never let the children go."

Misato's expression hardened. "I don't care about what NERV will or will not do. I am telling you what I want. And in exchange I will tell you everything I know. Yes. That is why you wanted to talk to me in the first place, right? Even though, as you said, it was Nakayima who wanted a deal. I supposed you were ready to make concessions to him, so you can do the same thing for me."

"Six people for one testimony doesn't seem fair," Sato said. "Three I could have managed."

Misato placed her manila envelope on the table. "Five people."

Sato projected an amused look as he took her puzzle and opened the envelopee, slipping its contents on the table—Asuka's old passport. He frowned; Misato allowed herself a smile.

He picked up the passport and examined it. On the cover, it showed the eagle, arrows and olive branches of the Shield of the United States shimmering in gold-leaf etching.

"The Second Child is an American citizen," Misato said firmly, watching him as he flipped through the pages. "Her father is native born. And under the Post-Impact Constitution of 2006 and the Rice Act, she is entitled to refugee status if she should request it, and, by extension, the protection of the American military. But she is a minor and so, as her legal guardian, that authority extends to me. Those are your own laws, Mr. Sato. "

Sato held up the passport to the light to examine its watermark. "Why not just go to the embassy?"

"You know why," Nakayima interrupted. "The least useful thing in this sort of situation is diplomatic red tape. And it takes time. When the government finds out what our intentions are they will not hesitate to go after the children."

"And there's no telling what Commander Ikari might do," Misato added.

The American pressed his lips together, seeming to consider this new information. "America will, of course, honor her responsibility to her citizen." He looked at Misato. "And if you provide information, then we will take care of you—no bureaucracy, no red tape. The Third Child is a different issue."

"The Third Child will go or there is no deal. You have no idea how important that is." Misato leaned forward. "Shinji means the world to me. He is the reason for this little meeting and this deal."

For a moment, Sato seemed to lower his guard. "I know. I have a son too. Your position is not a very enviable one, I'll grant you that."

"Then you know what it feels like to fear for those you love, to want to protect them."

Sato shook his head. "It is still not enough," he said. "My superiors will never be able to justify it, and either can I. Taking the Second Child out of the equation, moves like this need to be measured by what we have to gain versus what we have to lose. To begin with, it won't be easy to do what you ask, overtly or covertly. I need more to work with here."

Misato drew her eyebrows together. "Then what else do you want?"

He seemed to consider that for a moment. It was merely a dramatic pause as far as Misato was concerned. He wouldn't have come here without already knowing what he wanted. Whether he was attempting to size her up or just test her patience, she couldn't tell. "Your testimony," he said finally, "and the children's."

"No. Absolutely not." Misato pointed a stern finger at him. "I will not have those children interrogated."

Sato quickly countered, "It would be more like a debriefing. We would treat them like witnesses, not criminals."

Misato had half a mind to walk out. Did this guy really think she gone to these lengths to protect Asuka and Shinji just to turn them over to be interrogated?

"Listen," Nakayima interrupted, "I really don't think it's a good idea to put these children through anything like that. I've seen what happens when they pilot the Evangelion … all that pain, all that anger. The whole point of this is to spare them. And you want to stick in them in a room with a cot and a table and ask them questions day and night?"

"I won't let Keiko be interrogated either," Miko said.

"It would be a waste of your time anyway," Misato growled, still angry. "They are just pilots. Child soldiers. They are victims in all this—you have no idea. What could you possibly want to learn from them? Your engineers have built and tested Evangelions. You even got rid of Unit-08 because it was too much of a liability, right? So then what?"

"We are not interested in the Evangelion in the same terms you are," he conceded. "We are not like the Russians or the Chinese, either. It has no value to us as a weapon. As you said, under the direction of the UN we have built three—surrendered two, and one took the lives of thousands of our people. No, Major, we want to know what it is, and where the hell it came from. We want the truth."

Finally, it all made sense to Misato. "Liar," she said. "The truth has no relevance to you people. You want to destroy the UN. Trust me, I can sympathize with that. But not by gambling with my loved ones. You want to prove to the world what piloting the Evangelion does to people because of how much the UN has invested in it and supported it. It would make them look like murderers and war criminals, correct?"

"Lets say you are not entirely wrong," he answered.

"And since you gave up yours," Misato continued, "it would make you look like you care, like you are unwilling to risk lives for power. Well, I can provide you with more dirt on the UN than you can imagine. All the way back to Second Impact. There is no need to get the children involved. And there is no need to lie because you don't think I'd agree with your motives. As far as the UN goes, I do agree."

"Men lie for many reasons," Sato said. "How can I be sure that you are not the liar? How can I be sure that everything you have told me is not just a bluff or a trap? After all, we did agree to come alone, didn't we?"

"So much for trust, I guess. We saw your men outside." Nakayima said, speaking what Misato was thinking.

"Yeah, we noticed," Miko sounded upset. She had not said anything since the suggestion that Keiko might be interrogated came up. "They stick out like sore thumbs."

Sato frowned and looked around the table, from her to Nakayima to Misato. "What are you talking about? My soldiers are invisible—only Section 2 can be that obvious. I came alone."

A sudden chill ran down Misato's spine and she felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She exchanged a horrified look with Nakayima. He knew it too. "Ah, shit!"

They were on their feet and rushing for the exit, Miko hurrying behind them.

The black sedan was still parked across the parking lot when they came out. Misato wasn't going to take any chances; she reached into her purse for her gun. As soon as they emerged from the bar, however, the sedan's powerful engine roared to life and its headlights ignited. They had been spotted.

"Miko, get down!" Nakayima yelled, pushing her behind the nearest car for cover. When he stayed there with her Misato realized he was not armed himself.

She cursed him and lined up her weapon.

The sedan rushed past them, tires squealing as it turned ina tight arc. She fired. The rounds hit. She heard them pinging as the jacketed slugs penetrated the thin metal of the car's body. One of its taillights shattered into a cloud of plastic, but the sedan sped into the distance. The gun clicked empty.

"Lets go," Misato spat, lowering her weapon and turning to Nakayima. She was already moving. "We'll take my car."

He nodded, helping Miko to her feet. "Miko, stay here. You'll be safe with Sato."

"No." She refused to let go of him. "If you go, I go with you."

They didn't have time for this. Whoever it was on that car had been after them, and they were going to get away. Somehow they had been found out, and Misato had to know by whom and what they intended. There was only one way to be sure. But as she opened her car door, Sato grasped her arm and called for her to stop. "What?" she demanded.

"Think about what you are doing. This was a surveillance op," he said matter-of-factly, his eyes locked on hers. "If they had been after any of you, they would have shot you before you came in. Or when you came out. But the only one acting like a gun-totting maniac here is you."

Nakayima growled, "That doesn't make sense. Nobody knew we'd be here." He was pale, but the protective way he was holding on to Miko told Misato it wasn't himself he was scared for. "Just the four of us."

"They tapped your cellphones, or your laptops, or something. Whatever it was, they wanted to keep an eye on you, but they weren't after you."

They all looked at each other.

Ironically, it was Miko who was quickest at voicing the most obvious question. "Then who were they after?"

Sato shrugged. "They might not even be after anyone. Intelligence gathering hardly ever is meant to lead to direct confrontation. It could be something as simple as wanting to know where you were."

But he was wrong.

Misato knew the answer to Miko's question. She could feel it in her heart. And suddenly she was more frightened than she had ever felt in her entire life. It was a sickening thing squirming inside of her, making her insides feel like acid; the knowledge that in trying to protect the children she had left them on their own.

Upon seeing the look of anguish on her face Nakayima said, "Major?"

She ignored him, tossing her gun into the car and rummaging in her purse for her cell phone. Her hands were shaking slightly as she held the device to her ear.

The phone rang.

Please answer, she thought desperately. Please. Please.

The phone was still ringing. Without realizing it, she sniffled. She turned away from the other three people and stared into the night. Still ringing. She lifted a hand to cover her face, fearing she would suddenly start crying from the sudden overflow of powerful emotions. Slowly, she felt her heart sinking. Every mechanical ring seemed to destroy a little more of everything she loved.

Please …

"Um, hello?"

Misato's heart swelled with joy at the sound of Shinji's sleepy voice. "Shinji! Are you okay?"

"Uh?" He was clearly confused. "Yeah. Why?"

"I think you might be in danger. I want you to get Asuka and leave the apartment. Turn out all the lights and lock the door behind you. Go to a different floor and find a place to hide. Take your phone with you. I'll call you when I get there."

"Misato, what's going on?" Shinji said, his voice sounded scared now, an echo of Misato's own distressed tone.

"Just do what I'm telling you!" She hadn't meant to yell at him, and quickly added a soft, "Please."

"Okay."

"Be safe," she told him, wishing she could reach out and hold him. "Don't be afraid. I'll protect you and Asuka."

"I know."

That was a vote of confidence Misato was not sure she deserved. She hung up, putting the phone away and opening the driver's side door.

"I have to go now," she told Sato, and barely had time to register his accenting nod before she had squeezed behind the steering wheel. She turned the key as the passenger side door swung open. She opened her mouth to protest, but Miko was already climbing into the back seat. Nakayima dropped onto the passenger seat, slamming the door shut behind him.

"We are coming with you," he said. "If you are right and someone is going after the children, you are going to be needing help. You got a weapon I can borrow?"

"How can you not have a gun?" Misato asked acidly.

"The last time I carried a gun, my own boss shot me with it," he said.

"Right." Misato thought about blaming him; this had been his idea; he was the one who worked for the government; he was the one who was most likely to have let something slip. She could blame him easily, tell him to get out of the car and get lost. But the look of worry on his face dissuaded her. He didn't have to offer to come with her or to help her, and yet there he was. This wasn't the time for blame.

"There's a shotgun behind the back seat," she said and jammed the car into gear.

* * *

"Miko, stay in the car. I'm serious." Nakayima climbed back from between the two front seats, the twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun in his hands. As the blonde ducked out of sight, he jumped out of the parked Alpine and ran to join Misato at the base of the stairs. She had her gun ready, a fresh clip in the stock, her heels off.

"Lets go," Misato said.

She led the way, climbing the steps as fast as she could. Nakayima followed closely behind her, but after the first couple of floors he was already short on breath. Misato's legs were just warming up. "Suck it up. I thought you were a soldier."

"It's been a long time since I left the military," he panted. "And gym memberships are very expensive. Why couldn't we have taken the elevator?"

"It's a choke point." Fueled by adrenaline and fear, Misato took the steps two and three at a time so quickly she wasn't even seeing them anymore. They were just gray concrete blurs passing beneath her as she left them behind.

"So is your front door."

Misato ignored him. When they got to the right floor she backed herself up against the nearest wall and scanned the darkened hallway. Everything seemed normal. She moved alongside the wall, keeping her back to it, and holding her gun in front of her with both hands.

As they got to her door, Nakayima moved in front and she stacked closely behind him. In the confined space of her apartment, his shotgun was a far deadlier weapon than her handgun. There was a reason regimental combat teams usually led with them.

"What does the inside look like?" he asked.

"Narrow hallway after the entrance. Goes into a kitchen. The bathroom entrance will be behind you—I'll take care of that. The kitchen opens up into the living room. Main bedroom on the left. Hallway on the far right corner. Bedrooms on either side."

Nakayima nodded, taking all that in very quickly. "This is really going to be bad if they know we are coming."

"You do remember how to do this, don't you?" She sounded stern. "If all you are gonna do is get yourself killed maybe we should switch."

He shook his head, and pumped the shotgun. "No, it's like riding a bicycle."

Misato took a deep breath and looked at him carefully. He was focused on the door, his dark, narrow eyes hard with determination. She had never regretted agreeing to help him that day in New Yokusuka, she hadn't really thought about it too much, but she was glad she hadn't turned him away. Like herself, she realized, he had people in his life he was willing to die for.

Seeing that he was ready, she passed her key card along to him. He swiped it on the lock. The door opened with a quiet hiss.

In the time it had taken to drive back several scenarios had come to Misato's mind. The problem was that she didn't know what to expect. It could be nothing, it could be one guy with a handgun, or it could be an entire squad of MOI gunmen. There was no doubt in her mind the Japanese government was behind this. If Sato could be trusted, it wasn't the Americans. And it certainly was not NERV.

She had decided on the tactical approach for two reasons: even if there was nobody waiting on the other side of that door she had to be careful—getting killed wouldn't help the children any—and if there was someone in there it would maximize the chances of making it out alive.

Misato tapped Nakayima on the right shoulder. He went in first, shotgun level and ready. Misato expected the dark to flare up with gunfire as soon as they crossed the threshold. At least she wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that she had failed miserably. That was the truth. She expected to die.

She took a deep breath and followed Nakayima into blackness. And …

Nothing.

"Entrance clear," Nakayima called out, moving down the hall. "Kitchen clear."

They moved around the kitchen, Misato quickly checking the bathroom. "Bathroom clear." Rather than hitting the lights they moved to the living room. She placed a hand on the back of his left shoulder to help him navigate.

"Living room clear." Nakayima covered her as she opened her bedroom door and swept the gun around it. She called that it was clear and they moved down to Shinji and Asuka's rooms. Those were clear too. Then the balcony.

The apartment was empty.

Misato breathed a huge sigh of relief, lowering her gun at last. Feeling slightly better about the whole thing, she walked back outside as Nakayima started turning on lights and dialed Shinji's cell phone.

"Misato?" Shinji answered immediately.

"Yeah, it's me," she said. "It's okay. Where are you?"

The next voice she heard was much sharper and higher than Shinji's, a girl's voice, a very particular girl's voice. "Hey, give me that—" There was a loud noise, like something hitting the mouthpiece, followed by a struggle. It didn't take a genius to figure out Asuka was trying to snatch the phone away from Shinji.

Surely enough, her demanding tone was the thing Misato heard. "What the hell is going on, Misato?"

Misato was so glad to be talking to them that she didn't at all care about their bickering. "Asuka, I'm outside the apartment. Where are you?"

"On the next floor," Asuka said. "At the top of the stairs. What the—"

"Stay there." Misato hung up the phone and ran. She climbed the first set of stairs at a trot. Once on the landing between floors she looked up. Shinji was sitting on the last step, clutching Pen-Pen in his arms; Asuka was standing at the top, the cell phone still in her hands, looking angry. They were both still in their loungewear—t-shirts and shorts—and barefoot. Clearly, they left the apartment in a rush.

"You have a lot explain, Katsuragi!" Asuka shrilled.

Shinji rose to his feet. He seemed scared.

Misato finally let down her guard the moment she saw them, and in doing so realized she was emotionally depleted. Her adrenaline had kept her going, but there had been a wide empty hole in her chest that was only now starting to fill again thanks to the realization that they were safe. She climbed the remaining steps slowly, feeling her legs complain all the way, and, before she even knew she would do so, had drawn them both into a tight hug.

Shinji leaned into her silently, squeezing Pen-pen between them. Asuka groaned a protest but did not struggle to pull away.

* * *

Shinji watched Asuka but she didn't seem to be looking at anything, just staring at space. It had taken all of fifteen minutes for Misato to explain what she thought was happening. He and Asuka—whose irritation at being taken out of bed had mostly vanished—listened to her carefully. Only Misato spoke, and that left a strange sort of vacuum as she paused routinely to gather her scattered thoughts.

The atmosphere was heavy, almost as if someone had died or been hurt, and the silence as Misato stopped only made it worse. He wished someone else would speak.

"You are being paranoid," Asuka said finally, blinking to focus her eyes on Misato. "You are probably overreacting as usual."

The three roommates had crowded into the kitchen, taking chairs on different sides of the table. The man named Nakayima and the girl named Miko stood leaning against one of the wooden counters next to each other. Shinji was very uncomfortable about having strangers in the apartment, but given the suddenness and seriousness of the situation it seemed like a useless thing to worry about. Asuka hadn't even deemed it worthwhile to acknowledge their presence, despite Miko constantly sending angry looks her way.

She made Shinji feel awkward. He saw a kind of very intense resentment in her face, like Asuka had done something to her. It was possible—Misato had said Miko was a NERV technician, and Asuka usually treated them like her own personal servants, sometimes worse.

"It's not paranoia," Misato explained. She seemed worn out, exhausted, leaning her elbows heavily on the table.

She obviously believed that they had been in danger. It still didn't make much sense to Shinji: why would the Japanese government be trying to cause them harm? They were on the same side. They needed NERV to defeat the Angels or there wouldn't be anything to prevent Third Impact.

Asuka seemed to be thinking right along that same lines. "But they need us."

"You are a weapon that no one but NERV can control," Nakayima said. It was the first time he'd spoken tonight. His voice was low, and it reminded Shinji of Kaji. "And people, especially people with power, always fear what they can't control."

"And getting to you is the only way to get to the Eva," Misato explained wearily. "Even if they wanted to take on NERV, they had to know they'd be doomed from the start because they have no weapons to counted the Evangelion. Even with an entire Armored Division."

Asuka turned her head to Nakayima. "Who the hell asked your opinion?"

"I'm-" he stared but Misato interrupted him.

"He's got a point."

"But, Misato ... " Shinji curled up more tightly in his chair, looking down at his knees instead of her. "Why would they want to take on NERV?"

Misato inched towards him, stretching out her hand on the table as if to take his before realizing that there was nothing there. "They have never liked us," she said. "They only put up with us because we can defeat the Angels, and that's something no one else can hope to do."

"So what can we do?" he asked her, feeling incredibly small.

Misato took a long time to answer. Her expression was one of sadness, and Shinji knew that she was going to say something that would cause them a great deal of pain. She signed heavily, shoulders sinking. "Here isn't safe for you anymore. We have to leave."

Asuka sprang onto her feet, her chair clattered loudly to the ground.

"I am not going anywhere!" she bellowed, slamming her hands on the table and leaning over it threateningly. "You don't even know what's going on and you want us to leave everything behind? I won't!

Misato sighed again, but either from guilt or shame kept her eyes away. "Asuka ... "

"I won't leave Unit-02!"

"I know being an Eva pilot is very important to you," Misato said, not understanding Asuka's objection the same way Shinji did. "But this is not about Eva, it's about you. It's about you being safe."

"You are just guessing, aren't you?" Asuka screamed, showing her teeth. "You don't really know anything! You think we are in danger! You think you know better! But you don't KNOW! What the hell kinda guardian are you?"

Swallowing that almost seemed to make Misato gag, but she said nothing. She just took it. Shinji wished Asuka would at least tell her why Unit-02 was so important, that it had to do with her mother and that it was her whom she didn't want to leave. He thought that would make her refusal more reasonable.

Miko suddenly moved forward, an angry glare fixed onto her face. "How dare you!" she yelled at Asuka as Nakayima grasped her arm to restrain her. "Major Katsuragi is trying to protect you because she cares about you! Can't you understand that? After what you did to Keiko I doubt you even deserve it!"

"Miko," Nakayima said soothingly. "Calm down."

Shinji was taken aback by the mention of the former brunette pilot. The subject of Keiko Nagara had almost become taboo in the apartment, a symbol of everything Asuka had felt was wrong with her and the worst kind of brutality she was capable off.

Furious, Asuka rounded on her. "You don't know anything about me, so don't speak to me as like you do! I've never asked Misato to protect me, I can look after myself!" Her eyebrows drew together sharply. "And what is the crybaby to you, anyway?"

"I know all I need to!" Miko retorted, red-faced. She now had Nakayima's arms around her, holding her back. "You almost killed my little sister. You ruined her life. All she ever wanted was to be your friend and all you could ever do was hurt her!"

Shinji felt his eyes widening as the word 'sister' hit him like a fist. His heart was suddenly very still in his chest. Keiko's sister? She had a sister? And Asuka was …

It hit Asuka, too. He caught a glimpse of realization in her eyes—only for a split second, and he only noticed because he had grown so attuned to her. But it was enough that Asuka did not shout back. What could she say? For all that had changed, and whatever might have been wrong with Unit-02, it had been her who was in control when it attacked Keiko.

To Shinji, this was the equivalent of having to face Toji's father after hurting his son. Despite her anger, he could only imagine how awful Asuka must have felt.

Momentarily unopposed, Miko carried on. "But I guess that's just what you do. Even when someone is trying to protect you, you just throw it back in her face! What more do I need to know? What more proof do I need that you are a horrible human being? You don't deserve to have someone who cares about ... you don't deserve anybody!"

Asuka clenched her fists and stood her ground. "You have no idea what I've been through!"

"You?" Miko stepped forward, actually dragging Nakayima along with her, looking as distraught as Shinji felt. "YOU? You little selfish brat! Do you even regret what you did to her? Are you even sorry?"

Shinji cast an alarmed glance at Misato, who was shaking her head helplessly. He knew she didn't have enough left in her to fight with them both and bring things back under control. Miko glared unrestrained hatred, tensed and seemingly ready to start clawing at Asuka, who glared back and refused to back down. He didn't want her to act like this. All she was doing was showing that she really was all those terrible things Miko had said about her. And Miko was not even wrong—Asuka had hurt Keiko. Hurt her very badly.

Then Asuka took a step. "I'll show you sorry!"

"Please stop," Shinji whispered softly, then caught himself. Somehow, he dredged up just enough courage to look at Asuka, his pale-blue eyes begging.

The grossly offended expression she threw his way almost broke his heart. "Don't you take her side! I swear to God, if you—"

"Please, Asuka." His voice was barely audible now, and even he was aware that he sounded pathetic. He hitched his knees higher, tightening his grip on them, letting his head sink lower. "I just don't want you to fight."

The redheaded German girl he had feared would have likely turned her rage on him, screaming at him that he act like a man instead of a mouse, but the girl he loved moved back, lowering her shoulders in a gesture of reluctant agreement. "Fine."

Miko also backed off, though she continued to glare at Asuka. Nakayima loosened his grip around her waist, but he didn't let go of her. Asuka picked up her chair from the floor and set it back at the table. She remained standing, visibly stiff and unhappy. Shinji wished he could put his arms around her as well.

"He's right," Misato finally intervened, looking reproachfully at Asuka, then at Miko. "You shouldn't be fighting at a time like this. Arguing over who hurt who and why isn't going to help anyone. We need to decide what to do—"

"I'm not leaving, either," Shinji interrupted, as much to his own surprise as to Misato. He tried not to let their eyes meet, afraid to loose whatever resolve he had managed.

Every pair gaze in the room had turned to him. He kept his own low and, as if needing to hear himself say it once again to become convinced that the words had actually been spoken out loud, repeated more resolutely, "I'm not leaving."

Misato rose slowly, tiredly, from her chair and paced a hand on his shoulder. "Shinji, if you stay, I don't know how I could protect you," she said kindly. "I don't think you'd be safe."

He shook his head sullenly. "This is the first place that's really felt like home. Leaving it would be like leaving a part of me behind, like losing something I don't want to lose. I don't want to run from the one place where I've felt even a little bit of happiness."

Out of the periphery of his vision he noticed Asuka had unclenched her fists and her hands now hung loosely by her side. Shinji allowed himself a quick look at her and saw that the anger that had twisted her face a moment ago was gone and what remained was the pretty girl that had taken his heart.

Their blue eyes locked onto one another; her lips parted slightly as if she might say something, but didn't. He loved to see her like that, caught off-guard. He loved the openness that her sharp features could display when he did or said something that she hadn't expected, when she relaxed with him, when she slept. Misato could try to convince him if she really wanted, and he knew that it would only be out of caring; she could tell him it was for the best and for their own safety, and she would probably be absolutely right.

For that reason Shinji avoided her eyes. He knew he would agree with her and he didn't want to, because the only thing that mattered to him was Asuka.

And Asuka wanted to stay.

Recognizing a lost cause when she saw one, Misato sighed and straightened. "I will have Section 2 tighten the perimeter around the apartment," she said to no one in particular. "I'll give orders that they are not to let you out of their sight, and they'll be authorized to use deadly force if your safety is at risk."

She turned to Asuka. "I really hope you are right and I'm being paranoid. But please be careful. If you notice anything strange at school or anywhere, please let Section 2 know. I don't want anything to happen to the two of you."

Even Asuka did not have the heart to argue with their guardian's concerned tone and just nodded, though Shinji suspected his asking her to stop fighting might have something to do with that. Misato seemed to consider it a small victory; he was just glad no one was yelling.

"You two are gonna have to take the train," Misato said to Nakayima and Miko, who, like Asuka, had calmed down and appeared more tired than angry. There was also a hint of shame. "I'm not going out again tonight. Sorry."

* * *

"It is not a very effective way to run my department," Mushashi Kluge said coldly, pausing to light the cigarette held between his teeth. "This is not the sort of thing one simply puts together for the sake of exercise. Men and equipment have to be mustered, prepped, and then there is the matter of the actual operation. Everyone knows to expect danger. They expect action, a chance to satiate their bloodlust. What they do not expect is to be called off for the flimsiest of reasons."

He exhaled a cloud of smoke. "And, of course, it makes the leadership, that is me, seem indecisive. A man in my position can not afford that."

Ritsuko remained sitting still in her seat, unmoved and unconvinced by his speech. "A small price to pay for the souls of children."

"We would not have killed them. If at all possible, I would have liked to meet them." Kluge took one of the small glasses filled with ice and dark liquor from the limousine's bar and handed it to her. "As I explained, it would have been better. I am not prepared to make an arrangement for their lives at any further stage. To be honest, I think you have just condemned them to certain death."

Ritsuko took and offered glass and drank. The liquor, some kind of aromatic whiskey, looked very expensive. "We'll see," she said. "I have already guaranteed the Evangelion's non-commitment as a defensive measure. As long as you follow the plan it will not be an issue. Arrangements can always be changed."

Kluge took another glass and held it out to Maya, who shook her head. The female operator had taken the far corner of the seat, leaning away from him while casting pleading glances towards Ritsuko. It was not far enough; the cigarette smoke was as repulsive as the man himself.

Maya been stunned to learn Ritsuko was working with Kluge. A part of her, the part that had idolized her sempai almost since meeting her, still refused to believe it. If being forced to betray her own principles at gunpoint had proved a hard blow to stomach, seeing Ritsuko do it willingly had all but crushed her spirit. She didn't know how she got through her days anymore; she felt like she was trapped in a nightmare.

"I see," Kluge mused, his fixed on Maya. "I know we started with the wrong foot, Lieutenant, but I assure you, Doctor Akagi has already seen to what I needed from you. You have nothing to fear from me."

Maya recoiled, shaking her head again. She had her arms wrapped around herself protectively, but she felt utterly naked. She was cold, shivering. "You wanted to kill me," she muttered.

He returned the glass to the mini-bar. "I could see how you would think that," she said. "But no, I wanted you to help me. The threat of force was only a means to guarantee your cooperation. I apologize for rattling you. Sometimes we must all do things we find unpleasant for the greater good."

"I would never do that," Maya said.

"No?" He seemed amused. "Sending fourteen-year-old children to fight overpowered abominations in bio-mechanical monsters that are just as likely to kill them doesn't strike you as unpleasant? In other parts of he world that would be called a war crime."

Maya felt sick with herself, both because of the accusatory way he said it, and because she knew it was the truth. What she had seen those children suffer—it was a war crime. And yet there really was no choice. The Evas could only be piloted by children, and only the Evas could defeat the Angels. "That's different."

"How so?"

"We protect a lot of people," Maya said more daringly than she felt.

"As do I." Kluge kept his eyes on her a minute longer, until Maya could not take it and shied back into her corner like a chastised girl afraid to incur further punishment. With a sideways glance, she saw him turn back to Ritsuko.

"I really don't like you browbeating my staff," the older woman said.

"Perhaps you shouldn't have brought her," he said.

Ritsuko looked pityingly at Maya. "You got her involved in this. She has as much right to know what is going on as anyone." Her face hardened as she turned her attention back to Kluge. "But that's not important right now. What worries me is you taking things into your own hands again. How am I supposed to trust you?"

Kluge considered thoughtfully. "Trust is a matter of instinct, I think. But I understand your concern. However, as it relates to the children, while there are guarantees I can make, there are some that I can not. And there are some I will not. Removing the children from the equation was a practical solution to what could turn into very impractical problem. Once they do become a problem—when the situation devolves into kill or be killed—there might not be any guarantees to make. If that should happen, we might have no choice but to put them down."

Hearing him use that term, normally reserved for animals, filled Maya with hot anger. "Good luck," she scoffed. "It would take most of the SSDF to bring down a single Eva."

Kluge smiled crookedly. "We are very aware of that, I assure you."

"But you still need justification," Ritsuko said, sipping from her drink and giving Maya a warning look, which the young girl accepted with a nod.

"The software footprint is in my hands," Kluge said, "thanks to you. I have what I need. The evidence has simply not been confirmed yet. It might take some time, but once it is …"

Maya fully understood what he meant—Ritsuko had explained after she had turned over the memory module she used to download parts of Unit-02's programming. Once the ISSDF computers had broken down the Emerald Tablet's software footprint she stole and Ritsuko provided, and matched it what the UN had recovered from Beijing there would be no doubt as to NERV's complicity in the catastrophe.

There would be no realistic way to uphold the Special Protection Order which had defended them from the circling vultures, nor would there be any way to question the evidence. From what Maya understood, the Emerald Tablet was unique, its algorithmic structure more complex than just about any other on the planet, and it was as readily identifiable as human DNA.

That Ritsuko had been capable of using something like that with Unit-02—and Asuka—was among the most horrifying things Maya had ever seen someone do, and in her tenure as a NERV technician she had seen quite a lot. It was like Ritsuko just didn't care what might happen to the young redhead and just used her because it was practical and possible.

And Maya had let it happen, too clueless to figure it out even as Asuka fought and suffered and hurt others. She was as much a victim as Keiko, though perhaps in a different way. Many of NERV's actions could be justified on the basis of necessity, but there was only so far they should be willing go; they had to balance necessity with responsibility, taking into account that the Children's lives had value and do their best to protect them. Maya believed in that.

But in using the Emerald Tablet—in allowing Asuka to be infected by it, Ritsuko had failed in her responsibility. And that was before the death toll from Beijing was added into the butcher's bill.

Maya felt a shiver run through her body. God, she wanted to just crawl into her bed and hide.

"Once you do," Ritsuko said, "Gendo Ikari will know what betrayal feels like."

Kluge nodded. "Indeed."

Maya already knew—and it was heartbreaking.

* * *

Asuka finished clipping on her neural connectors as she stepped outside. The humid night air brushed against her skin as she walked, her clothes sticking to her slender form like a damp towel. Not having had a chance to change, it was the second time tonight she left the apartment without dressing properly.

Suddenly awoken and rushed by Shinji, and still sore from her first penetration just a few hours earlier, she had barely managed to throw on her discarded clothes on the way to the door. She had to forgo the need for underwear and spent the next few minutes fidgeting uncomfortably in her high-cut shorts. She had no recollection of how or when Shinji had gotten back into his clothes, but those frantic minutes seemed like a blur and she had been too sleepy and tired to worry about such details. At least Misato had enough sense to call ahead—otherwise they would have been found sprawled naked on Shinji's bed without so much as a thin sheet to cover them, and that would have been really embarrassing.

But unlike the needless evacuation earlier, this time Asuka had a purpose in leaving the apartment. She headed down the hall, hoping to catch up with Miko and the guy whose name she couldn't be bothered to remember. Her slippers made little noise in the night, almost muted by the din of the cicadas; she could have gone barefoot, as she had when Shinji had sleepily dragged her out of the apartment in his panic, but somehow she thought that would make her seem vulnerable.

Having him always willing to listen had made her forget how difficult talking to someone you didn't want to talk to, specially on a subject you would rather avoid, could be. But this was something Asuka thought she had to do.

She found the adults waiting for the elevator, still in each other's secure embrace. Witnessing their affection angered her. She didn't know why.

"Excuse me," Asuka called, and though she tried to sound as pleasant as she could, her voice still sounded grating.

They both turned to her in surprise, but in Miko's case it was quickly overshadowed by resentment. "What do you want?"

Asuka, the proud Second Child, found that she could not meet Miko's eyes and dropped her gaze to the floor. It wasn't just guilt she felt eating away at her—guilt she could deal with. But as far as Keiko went, Asuka knew full well that, whatever the excuse, what she had done was wrong. She was not used to being wrong. She liked it even less.

"I …" Asuka started without knowing what she wanted to say. She felt suddenly idiotic and realized this was a very bad idea from a stupid little girl who just couldn't accept that she had made a mistake and move on. She had spent the last few days trying so hard to be happy with Shinji that she had forgotten how much life could hurt. "I never meant to hurt Nagara," she blurted at last. "I didn't like her, but I didn't mean … I didn't mean for what happened."

Keiko, like Shinji, had been the sort of person who was easy to abuse. She had never meant Asuka any ill will, yet Asuka lashed out at her continuously simply because she could. Though it was a horrible thing to realize of herself, she had no illusions about who she was. Venting on Keiko had made the weight of her own self-loathing easier to bear. Keiko would never defend herself, and so was someone whom she could hate without caring or remorse for no good reason.

And it had made her feel better. That was the truth.

"Is that supposed to be an apology?" Miko said sharply. She stepped away from the man, who looked away.

Somehow, Asuka managed to bring up her gaze and fix it squarely on the blonde. Such a personal gesture required an incredible amount of strength. "No, it's not an apology," she said. "I don't think what I did to her can be forgiven."

Miko laughed disbelievingly. "She's already forgiven you."

Suddenly, in the warm night, Asuka felt a cold hand grip her heart. In her shock she let her emotions slip and her eyes widened, betraying her surprise. How could Keiko Nagara forgive her? How could anyone? If their roles had been reversed—if it where Asuka in the hospital brutally injured while the one who did that to her went around finding a love and living her life, she would have hated her forever. "Why?"

"I don't know." Miko shrugged. "All she said was she didn't want to live with that burden. I guess that's a good enough reason for her, but I don't agree."

Hating someone was definitely a burden. Asuka already knew that better than most people. It pushed down on your chest until you felt like you couldn't breathe, like your life simply stopped having meaning and your only purpose was to hate.

But her love for Shinji was changing that. She didn't understand how, just that it was, and she was glad for it. Once she had hated him, too.

Miko regarded her cautiously, her face set but no longer showing hostility. "Why did you do it?" she asked after a long silence.

Though, perhaps, she had every right to know, Asuka resented her question. She didn't have to answer—she certainly didn't owe this woman an explanation when she could hardly explain her actions to herself. But she was someone who cared about Nagara, much more than Asuka ever had, and so she had an obligation to her as she did her fellow pilot.

And there was also a more selfish reason. Because whatever Miko might think of her, Asuka had not hurt her sister just because she could. Not this time. She wanted her to know that.

"There was something wrong with me," the redhead started, trying not to remember what she had experienced in Unit-02 before seeing her Mama, nor the nightmares before that, nor thinking about killing herself that night. She couldn't think of any other way to put it. "I'm better now." She gulped, swallowing her emotions. "That's not an excuse. But I … I told her I would protect her. I should have protected her."

Miko listened to her, letting her finish. When she did, she moved closer and stood in front of Asuka. Taller than the redhead, she looked down on her. "You were going to protect her? I find that hard to believe."

"I don't care what you believe," Asuka said. She meant it, too.

"No, of course not," Miko said sarcastically. "Why would you? You are the Second Child—you don't care about anything or anyone."

Asuka clenched her fists, somehow keeping herself in check. "That's not true."

Miko furrowed her brow, short wisps of blonde hair sticking to her forehead. "Isn't it?"

"It doesn't matter. You can believe whatever you want, I don't care. You don't mean anything to me so it's not like your opinion of me matters. You can even hate me if you want. I know a lot of people hate me. But even if you don't believe anything I say, I want you to tell Nagara that I didn't mean to hurt her."

Miko appeared to be taken aback, which Asuka had not expected. The blonde girl reached up and grasped the front of her top. For the first time, her gaze dropped. "I don't want to hate anyone." Something like regret began to appear on her features as she shook her head. "Why don't you talk to Keiko yourself?"

Just as soon as Asuka came up with an answer she had to fight down another surge of self-loathing. She had been doing a lot of that lately.

Having accepted that she wanted to be with Shinji, and trying to be happy with him didn't mean all the negative emotions she had harbored for so long had gone away. They hadn't. Her conscious life was now a struggle between her ego and her desire. A weaker person would have gone insane, but she would do it as long as she had to, hoping it would get easier over time.

"I'm not brave enough," she said finally, hating how pathetic she sounded yet knowing in her heart that she was just being honest.

"It's not about being brave," Miko said, her voice low and surprisingly warm. She sounded a lot like Misato when she spoke like that. "It's about taking responsibility for what you do. That's what being a grown-up is about."

But Asuka had seldom felt like such a little girl. Taking responsibility, for one thing, included facing the object of that responsibility, and she couldn't do that just yet.

Maybe one day, she decided. One day when she had managed to find that kind of courage; when her heart, which had only very recently been set free, could accept forgiveness without having to surrender so much of her pride, and without feeling shame. Until then she would live with the knowledge of what she had done.

"Keiko always looked up to you, did you know?" Miko said, "I think she would welcome you. Maybe you don't even have to say anything—maybe just being there is enough."

"And maybe it's not," Asuka replied harshly.

But Miko's expression softened, as if to signal that she understood at least part of her reasons, and it was okay; that she didn't think she was such a horrible girl after all. "You will never know unless you try, right?"

Asuka didn't want to talk about this anymore, already much too far outside her comfort zone for her liking. The warm night pressed in on her, forcing its heat and moisture against her skin the same way anger and disgust clamped on her insides. She took a step back in silence, doing her best to keep from glaring.

Miko nodded, opting not to push any further, and returned to the man's side. "Good night, Asuka," she said pleasantly as he put his arm around her.

The Second Child watched them take the elevator to the ground floor. As they disappeared behind the closing doors she sighed, and let the weight of anger roll off her slumping shoulders. She stood there for a moment, then lifted her head and strode back to the apartment.

* * *

**To be continued …**


	14. Experience

Note: This definitely took longer than expected so apologies for that. I hope the wait was forth it. Thanks go to User-iel and Tabasco for the proof-reading, Big D and Jimmy for the feedback. Thanks also go to the people who actually write reviews. At this point the review to hits ratio is like 1%, which is not very encouraging considering what goes into every chapter. Luckily, this story is almost done. Then I can go back to writing smut.

As you might know from previous notes, this is the last regular chapter before the finale, which will probably be somewhere close to 100 pages or so given how much needs to happen. I had thought to be done by spring, but it's looking more like summer now.

* * *

**Evangelion Genocide: Extended**

"**It is because of laziness and cowardice that it is so easy for others to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor!" -Immanuel Kant.**

**Genocide 0:14 / Experience.**

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* * *

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Her morning routine had become so automated that Rei carried it out without thinking. She could perform the tasks in the dark, as she often did when she got up in the middle of the night to use the toilet. That the morning light which filtered in through the gap in her curtains illuminated her way as she rose from bed and walked to the bathroom hardly made any difference.

She had slept naked. Her experience had taught her that she ought to care about what she wore, but she seldom did. Rei dispensed with her clothing at her leisure—sometimes she couldn't be bothered removing them before going to bed, at others she neglected to put them on and went about wearing nothing until she was required.

Such impositions of society seemed vain, utterly useless. Nature did not demand that any of its creatures dress; only humans attempted to hide themselves from each other this way.

This way … and many more.

The shower water was hot, as always, one of the few comforts available in this housing block. Rei enjoyed the sensation on her skin, feeling it pour down her body in rivulets on all sides. She lowered her head and stared blankly at the drain between her feet.

She stood under the spray for another moment, not lathering up because she had run out of soap and never bought more. The small allowance that NERV put into her card went into food or into nothing. Dr. Akagi had taught her the importance of hygiene, but water seemed to clean her just fine. When she was done, Rei turned off the shower. There was no curtain separating the shower stall from the rest of the bathroom. Only a few plastic rings remained on the rod overhead.

The bathroom was small, holding only the shower, a dirty sink and a toilet in a corner. The metallic fixtures were rusting, staining the white porcelain with streaks of brown. The tiles underfoot were patterned in black and white squares and were badly scuffed. Several stains looked like dried blood.

Her short blue hair, soaking wet, stuck to her face and hid her eyes as she walked in front of the mirror. She was a ghost, a pale apparition who, in her own opinion did not look very much alive. And she felt like a ghost—transparent, nonexistent.

Removing a yellowing towel from a nearby rack, she threw it over her head and around her shoulders and began drying her face. Again she questioned the necessity of this behavior. The Commander had told her she could miss school, that it no longer mattered to her development, yet she had resolved to continue attending. It was one of the few decisions, like going to see Keiko, that she made on her own, a physical representation of her free will. She did not understand why she felt it was important, but it seemed to give meaning to her time.

When asked, Keiko said that an education was important because it opened doors in your future. Rei did not shared that view but she humored the injured brunette out of the same sense of compassion that had first compelled her to visit her, and then to help her.

With her hair dry and out of the way she finally saw her eyes, unnatural red orbs that peered out dully from a delicate, emotionless face. She ran the towel over her arms, rapidly budding chest, narrow waist and legs, carefully avoiding more sensitive places that she had learned could cause different responses than what she was used to. All this she did mechanically. Her gaze remained fixed on her reflection.

Tossing the towel aside into the box that served to hold her laundry until she could have it taken care of, Rei crossed into the living room.

Her bed was a mess of twisted sheets. Hanging from a rack nearby was her school uniform, the familiar blue jumper and white blouse. While the jumper was one of only two she owned, the blouses could be purchased in sets of five, one for everyday of the week. Her predecessor had opted for this rather than buying individual ones. Likewise, Rei Ayanami, the second one, had bought panties in sets of five, keeping them neatly arranged in a drawer like some hidden treasure.

Since they were the same size, Rei, the third, never had to worry about going shopping, using what was left to her by the girl who lived her life before. Lately, however, she had seen a white dress in a shop window that attracted her strangely.

Rei dressed in a few seconds, every movement practiced countless times. She slipped into her shoes on the way out, her book bag already clasped in her hand.

The morning sun shone brightly on the deserted blockhouse buildings. This part of the city was largely abandoned and populated only by low-income tenants who could afford nothing better. The din of construction that had permanently polluted the air was long silent; with fewer and fewer people moving in, there was little use for additional housing. In fact, all of Tokyo-3 seemed to be dying a slow a death, something the second Rei had helped bring about by her destruction of most of the downtown district.

The only thing keeping the city alive were the trains. Rei knew the routes by heart, knew which doubled as combat supply railways and which served as means of evacuation. As an Eva pilot, this information had been highly relevant; as … Rei, it wasn't.

It wasn't long, as she moved down the narrow sidewalk, until Rei noticed a tap on the back on her mind. The sensation was similar to fingers reaching through the base of her spine, upwards into inaccessible parts of her brain. She looked behind her and saw a large black sedan with tinted windows parked on the opposite side of the street.

Ever since a suspected kidnap attempt a few weeks back Major Katsuragi had tightened Section 2's protective perimeter around the Children. The Second Child had made quite a spectacle when they were told that Section 2 would now keep them under surveillance around the clock. Rei thought it a valid precaution if the Major was indeed worried about their safety. In his usual shy manner, the Third Child had agreed, earning him a tongue lashing from his redheaded companion.

"Excuse me."

Rei heard the words before they were spoken and turned her head to find the person speaking them as she finished. A black haired woman stood in front of her, dressed in NERV's cream-colored uniform and holding a map. She had green eyes and a round face. Her features were soft, distinctly western, and twisted in confusion.

"Perhaps you could help me," the woman said, gesturing with her map. "I just transferred from Matsushiro. I was assigned an apartment on block A, apartment 303. Problem is I don't know where that is."

Immediately Rei knew there was something wrong about this woman—something in the back of her mind told her the voice didn't sound right despite having never heard it before. She kept her red eyes frozen on the woman, as if trying to see through her, not saying anything.

The woman drew back. "Uh, I didn't mean to bother you. Sorry if I—"

"Is there a problem?" The Section 2 agents sitting in the car had stepped out and were now walking towards Rei and the woman across the street.

The woman turned her attention from Rei to the agents.

"Yeah," she said, growing nervous. "I'm lost."

"You work for NERV?" the agent on the right asked, taking in her appearance from behind his sunglasses.

"Yes." The woman hastily produced an ID card out of her purse and showed it to the agents. "My name's Fuunoka."

"That's a weird name for a girl," the agent on the left snickered as his partner examined the identification.

"Tell my parents that."

"Where are you headed?" the other agent asked, returning the ID card after apparently becoming convinced it was genuine.

She showed him her map. "Block A, apartment 303."

The agent looked at the map, then down the street at a large building a hundred yards away then back at the map. He pointed in the direction of the building though he seemed uncertain. "It's over there, I believe."

"Thanks," the woman said, her expression turning to pleasant gratitude as she folded her map. "You guys must be from Section 2. You know, I've heard some real horror stories about you. It's nice to see you are not all jerks." She extended a hand and they both shook it.

The strange woman turned her glance back to Rei. "Well, I guess I better check on my new place. I'll see you around, neighbor."

Rei didn't acknowledge her, but both agents watched her go, attracted, no doubt, by her shapely legs encased in NERV's regulation white stockings and short skirt. They didn't know what she did—that this girl was a liar.

* * *

Shinji watched Asuka sigh at the group of girls gathered near the front of the classroom then bring her sullen blue gaze back to the open bento in her lap. He couldn't take the guilt anymore. "Asuka, I don't mind if you want to go have lunch with them. Really."

Sitting atop his desk, her toes not quite reaching the floor, Asuka seemed to seriously consider it. Shinji sat on his chair bellow her, holding up his own bento as he picked out of it with chopsticks. Hikari had pulled up a chair and sat to their right. Kensuke was to their left, completing a tight yet hopelessly awkward little group. A much larger group had gathered around Miho, including most of the girls who would normally hang out with Asuka during lunchtime.

"They're just stupid little girls," Asuka said bitterly after a moment. "I don't care what they think. It's a waste of my time."

Shinji was not convinced. He would expect such an answer from her, but he also knew her well enough to realize that what she said didn't always match how she felt. He also knew better than to get into an argument with her over something like this.

As Shinji returned to his bento, he let the hint of blue on his peripheral vision catch his glance. Rei Ayanami was still sitting at her usual place next to the window. She was not eating, just staring blankly at the scenery outside and being alone. It always made Shinji feel bad for her. They hadn't talked much lately, and he was sure Asuka would be—

"I saw that!"

"I'm sorry," Shinji said apologetically, his head low to avoid Asuka's angry glare.

"I have to make sacrifices to be with you." Asuka set her bento aside and sat forward, her eyebrows drawn sharply together. "The least you can do is pay attention to me!"

"I know. But ..." Shinji hesitated, as always having trouble with what he wanted to say. Despite his relationship with Asuka having progressed to where he felt he could talk to her about almost anything, it was never an easy thing to do. "I mean, you know how it feels to be alone, don't you? More than anyone, I think. And … I know, too. So it bothers me when I see Rei alone."

"And you think I'm being a jerk, is that it? I'm just mean old Asuka who doesn't care about anyone."

"No."

Now Shinji felt put-upon. They both knew very well that he didn't think that was true—Asuka wasn't mean for the sake of being mean—but her nature was to be confrontational in the extreme. She couldn't have a conversation like most people, she had to turn it into a battlefield. And while their fellow students still regarded her as the same incisive girl she had always been, Shinji was keenly aware that beneath the exterior layer hid a tangle of painful emotions.

What no one else could understand about Asuka was the level to which her attitude reflected her own inner wounds, and how deep and hurtful those wounds were. Though she could doubtlessly handle herself better, he had no right to try to correct her. Because he, unlike others, did understand why she was like this.

But it still bothered him, especially in school.

"This is so typical of you," Asuka continued to bicker. "You are never glad for what you have. You don't appreciate anything—you used to do the same with Eva when I couldn't pilot. You only think about what you _don't_ have."

"I said I was sorry, okay?" Shinji let his shoulders sag and dropped his head even further. "I just want to have a nice lunch. No fighting."

Besides him Hikari looked on disapprovingly, and for a moment Shinji thought she might step in and make things worse. He was glad when she continued to eat from her bento, as if keeping her mouth full was the only way to hold herself back. He could feel the pitying look from some of the other girls as well. At least he didn't have to worry about Kensuke—Asuka's threat to shove his camera down his throat if he ever came between her and Shinji was enough of a deterrent.

"Fine," Asuka growled, and jumped to her feet.

And to Shinji's horror, she marched straight towards Rei. He almost went after her, to stop her. He almost ran out the door, so as not to witness the awful fight she was certainly about to start. Because there was no way this could end in anything but a fight, and he would be caught in the middle—the very thing he had been trying to avoid.

By the time Asuka planted herself in front of Rei's desk, hands firmly set on her hips, Shinji wanted to disappear. And yet, like a car wreck on a busy highway, he couldn't look away. The lump in his throat kept him from calling out to Asuka. Hikari, too, was staring, and other girls had begun to notice. Rei ignored Asuka as long as she could, then the redhead opened her mouth.

"The idiot would be very happy if you joined us for lunch."

Shinji jaw fell open in shock—had Asuka just …

Rei returned Asuka's hostility with calmness, but her ruby eyes were wider than normal as they moved to meet blazing blue ones. "I do not have anything to eat," she said with great composure.

"What the hell kinda lame excuse is that?" Asuka thrilled, her voice rising to a new, more insistent pitch which she used only when _very_ annoyed. "Don't you know it's rude?"

Rei shook her head slightly. "Is it?"

"Yes, it is. It makes you seem anti-social, and you aren't fooling anyone." Asuka gave Shinji snide glance. "Why do you want to be alone, anyway? It doesn't make any sense."

"I am not alone."

Asuka snorted derisively. "Now you are just kidding yourself. Frankly, I don't care if you want to build a nice little wall around your desk and never come out. But it upsets the idiot. I'll put up with you as long as it keeps him from moping all through lunch."

Rei blinked, as close as she ever got to expressing surprise. "You mean Ikari—"

"Of course I mean Ikari!" Asuka pointed a finger at Shinji, who shrank back in his chair until it felt several sizes too big. "Are you stupid? Can't you see you are making him miserable?"

"I … am?" Rei looked at Shinji as if for confirmation of Asuka's statement.

All the Third Child could do was bow his head noncommittally. By now he realized Asuka didn't really want Rei to join them but would rather have that instead of him constantly looking at her from afar—even if it meant using guilt to manipulate her. Asuka knew she couldn't stop him from being concerned for Rei, she had said as much, and this was her way of ensuring that if he was to be concerned, he did so under her terms. It gave her a measure of control over something that bothered her.

When Rei got out of her chair it became clear Asuka had succeeded in including her in their group for all the wrong reasons. As she came back with the blue-haired girl in tow, Asuka flashed a sharp grin of victory. Then she leaned in and whispered in his ear. "See? Some dolls have a string you can pull."

Shinji turned his head away, gritting his teeth. "Please, don't … don't call her—"

She brushed his cheek, a light tap of her fingers in a downward stroke towards his lips, using just a little too much of her nails, discretely signaling he should he quiet.

"Have a nice lunch," Asuka said sarcastically. Smugness tugged her pretty face into an expression of self-satisfaction, but Shinji had gotten to know her well and instantly recognized the expression for what it was—a thin veneer to hide how she really felt.

Kensuke quickly found Rei a chair and she sat with them, holding her hands in her lap, not having anything to eat. As a good excuse to avoid Asuka's glare, Shinji began to reach into his bento for something to give her. Being a vegetarian she wouldn't like the beef slices, but—

"We're not sharing so don't get any ideas," Asuka said flatly, retrieving her bento box and once again climbing onto Shinji's desk. She folded her legs and returned the bento to her lap. "It's her fault she doesn't have anything to eat anyway."

Regardless, Hikari quickly volunteered some of her fried rice balls. Her cooking was not bad; Shinji was sure Rei would like them.

"Thank you," Rei said, her voice softer than Shinji could ever recall.

"Don't mention it, Ayanami," Hikari said. "Next time bring something to eat, or plan to buy something in the cafeteria. It's not very healthy to go without eating all day."

Rei nodded.

"I'll make you something next time if you want," Shinji started, but Asuka's glare told him he would shut up if he knew what was good for him. He returned his attention to his food.

They ate quietly for a while. Aware that he was walking on eggshells, Shinji kept under strict control beneath Asuka's watchful gaze. But rather than feeling like a prisoner, he slowly he began to consider the possibility that she had actually done something nice for him, even if only reluctantly so. The thought found a spot in his chest and nestled. He had never believed Asuka to be as selfish as she wanted others to think—okay, he had but that was a long time ago and only because he didn't understand. It was still possible that she had placed the wishes of someone else over her own. Wasn't it?

When Shinji finally managed to catch Rei's eyes he saw a strange gleam of sincere gratitude filling up the red orbs, one of the few emotions he could clearly recognize in her. And, as she ate, he thought he saw Rei smile. Asuka was too busy angrily assaulting her bento to notice or she would have certainly gone off on another rant. It felt strange to have the two of them so close together, and yet he wished they could spent more time like this.

Finished, Rei wiped her hands on her skirt. But instead of looking at Hikari, who had shared her food with her, she turned to Asuka. "Thank you."

"Is that all you can say now?" the redhead snapped.

Shinji caught her before Asuka could spew the insults he knew had to be coming. She looked back at him with angry, bristling eyes. He pleaded silently with her, asking her how she would feel if others excluded her the way Rei had been excluded; asking her to remember what it felt like to be alone. And perhaps because she did, Asuka dipped her head in a gesture of surrender.

The guilt returned, and Shinji wished he could tell her she didn't have to do anything like this to make him happy if it was not what she wanted. But he didn't know what her reasons were, and didn't want to make assumptions when they had proven so wrong in the past.

Because he had to do something, to both thank her and make it up to her, Shinji reached out his hand and placed it very gently on her knee. Asuka lifted her head, just enough to let him see her eyes through her long, scattered bangs. They shimmered prettily despite the anger.

Shinji began to open his mouth, but the expression on his face made his intention perfectly clear and Asuka was quicker, as always.

"If you say anything stupid," the German girl barked, "I'll punch you!"

* * *

"Ouch!" Shinji recoiled as Asuka punched him in the arm, hard. After being angry at him since lunch, and though that anger had subsided into annoyance, his latest stupid comment finally pushed her over the edge.

"Idiot, what the hell do you think is gonna happen when you say things like that?" Asuka lunged, her eyes round and angry, brow wrinkled. Then her hand shot downwards and found its way to his, closing into a tight grip. She pressed herself against him, her head turned away huffily. "It's like you're tempting fate."

Instinctively, Shinji squeezed her hand back, feeling her slender fingers worm their way around his until they were locked together. With their arms now at their sides and hands pressed between their bodies, it was unlikely that anyone on the crowded train platform could notice the intimate gesture. Such displays had slowly become more common as they grew more comfortable with each other.

"I didn't mean—Unit-01 has never had activation problems," Shinji said defensively, using his free hand to rub his sore bicep where she had punched him. "Besides, if you are right it's my mother inside of it."

"Maybe, but there was that one time she tried to EAT an Angel," Asuka replied, shuffling her feet to give herself a little more room. The salaryman next to her seemed none too pleased to find himself so close to a fidgety teenager. "She could have issues."

The memory gave Shinji chills; he was not even sure he had been in control back then. Unit-01 had gone berserk before, but that was the most vicious and violent episode of the whole lot. This particular Angel had just badly defeated Unit-00 and Unit-02, almost destroyed Central Dogma, and damaged Unit-01, severing one of its arms. Shinji had just run out of battery when she took over.

He was not certain if it could really be his mother, but there was a warm, welcoming and very familiar presence inside Unit-01. Time and again he had felt _something,_ and seen things that were like dreams. And during the last battle he had actually heard its voice inside the entry-plug, and it sounded a lot like his mother's voice. Asuka was convinced of it, given her own recent experience inside her Unit-02. He remembered she had been sourly disappointed that her activation test last week did not result in another reunion like the one she had previously described.

Shinji didn't know what to tell her. Maybe it was possible—there was so much about Eva that neither one of them understood. Or maybe they just missed their mothers so much they were seeing and hearing and feeling things because they wanted to be with them again.

Either way, there was nothing to fear from Unit-01.

"I'm just saying you shouldn't say things like that," Asuka added, apparently mistaking his silence for apprehension. "Not that something will go wrong."

"I guess someone will let you know."

Of course someone would let her know, he thought belatedly—she would be one who would have to find a way to take Unit-01 down should something go wrong. This time Asuka didn't punch him for saying such a stupid thing. She stomped on him.

Shinji yanked his foot away as her heel ground on his toes. But when he turned his head back to her he was struck by the concern showing on her face. Despite being older than she was by a almost six months, Asuka was actually an inch taller than him, not enough to make him look up to her but enough to remind him of the high standard she represented in his life, a standard he struggled to maintain despite his best efforts. There was, however, no denying the nature of the connection that now existed between them, and both he and Asuka recognized it.

And the fact that Asuka was so worried—in her unique way, which happened to involve hitting him with her hands and feet—assured him of how much he had come to mean to her. Of how high of a standard he was himself. Shinji was sure, as sure as he had ever been of anything, that Unit-01 would never harm him, but he grew fonder of Asuka for being willing to show her concern.

The loud screeching of brakes on metal rails started off in the distance, moving closer as the train approached. It was still slowing down as it crossed the terminal, windows passing by in a blur in front of Shinji and Asuka. When it finally stopped, the door slid open and the crowd began to bustle its way inside. Asuka gave Shinji a parting glance as she let go of his hand.

"I'll have you for myself tonight," Asuka said, reaching up to brush long bangs of golden-red hair out of her eyes as the crowd bumped her around, pushing her towards the open door.

Shinji's reply became lost in the din of voices and moving bodies. He turned sideways, making it easier for the crowd to flow around him.

Before he knew it he found Asuka on the other side of the closing door, hand on the glass. She offered him a grin and a tilt of her head calculated to seem playful, maybe a little flirtatious. He would definitely see her tonight, and knowing her, she would probably want to make up for their reluctant separation.

Shinji grasped the strap of his bag across his chest, over his heart, already quickening in anticipation of having Asuka's sweaty, naked body mingled with his in the heat of his room. Sex with her was oddly like fighting with her—more like an act of aggression on her part than cute and cuddly. She was always in charge, always on top. There was almost no kissing, no overt displays of affection beyond maybe holding hands, just smacking flesh and grunting. It wasn't the loving, caring experience Shinji imagined, but he got over it.

He smiled shyly at her, and her grin broadened in return.

Gestures like that had convinced him that no matter how obnoxious Asuka acted in public, or how nasty she could be to him and others, or even how downcast she might seem at times, she was happier than she had been since moving to Tokyo-3. Because of him.

With the humming of electric motors the train moved off, clacking as it rocked on the track, pushing out a draft that waved over Shinji like a breeze. The crowd had thinned considerably but the next train would not be far behind. The only reason, he suspected, Misato still allowed them to use the public transit system instead of having Section 2 drive them everywhere was the crowd—too many possible witnesses for anyone to try anything.

Allowing them to use the train was also Misato's concession to the fact that both he and Asuka were trying to lead normal lives as best they could. And Section 2 escorted them from one point to another, and skulked outside their school and home more visibly than before as if to blatantly announce their presence. They now had a standing 'weapons' free' order, meaning that they were to shoot anyone who might pose a threat to the children without warning.

Sure enough, when Shinji looked past the crowd he saw a man in a suit and tie standing at the edge of the platform. He had probably seen most of his interaction with Asuka. They might even have microphones on them to listen in on their conversation. He ignored what advantage they could gain from that, but teen romance was always good gossip material.

Suddenly feeling very embarrassed, Shinji glanced at his watch to hide his blush from the watching agent. Fifteen minutes until the train that would take him Central Dogma's outside hub arrived. Then he would be inside the installation's surveillance network and Section 2 would leave him alone. He would then be _recorded_ instead of merely watched.

Shinji blew out his breath in a sigh.

* * *

The next train arrived right on time fifteen minutes later. Fewer people got on board, and most of them wore NERV uniforms. Shinji found a seat near the back and placed his bag next to him as he dropped into it.

The train emerged from the station into a sheet of orange sunlight. The setting afternoon sun blazed low on the horizon, tinting the landscape with a color more vivid even than Asuka's hair. Long, black shadows streaked across the nearly empty car creating a shifting pattern of light and dark. Shinji fumbled inside his bag for his SDAT, leaning his head against the window as he slipped on his earbuds and hit the play button.

Beethoven rose out of nothingness. Ever since Kaworu died this was the only thing he listened to; he didn't know why. Beethoven seemed to give meaning to the long stretches of his life when nothing happened—when there was no Eva to pilot, no one to make him company.

He listened to Beethoven all the way down into Central Dogma. Until, finally standing in front of his locker, he took the earbuds out, along with the the rest of his clothing. Folding his uniform into a neat square, he placed it into the locker on top of his shoes, catching a glimpse of himself on the small mirror affixed to the back.

For no reason he thought of his mother. What would she think if she could see him now? Would she approve of the man he was growing into, of the choices he'd made? Was he what she expected? If he could just know that she was happy with him …

"I miss you," he murmured to no one and shut the locker.

Shinji picked up his folded plugsuit, ripping up the vacuum sealed plastic bag it came wrapped in, and began to put it on. The blue-white suit had become a symbol of some of the worse moments of his life, but it felt like armor against new tragedies.

As Shinji pressed the switch on his right wrist, the plugsuit's material stuck to his slender frame, venting out the air and creating a strong seal. He flexed his gloved hands and ran his fingers along his collar to check that it was properly aligned. The first time he'd worn the suit it had felt weird, like he wasn't wearing anything at all; the material was flexible yet thick enough to be protective, but it fit him so tightly that it was basically weightless. It had taken some getting used to.

Stepping from the locker room and walking down the hallway towards Unit-01's cage, Shinji couldn't keep his head from dropping. He didn't look up until he was in the cage, Unit-01's massive, purple form looming menacingly overhead. His Evangelion had been secured by locks and bolts to an upright set of rails that ensured it remained vertical and unmovable. The entry-plug was already locked into place, rising from the base of Unit-01's armored skull as a large cylindrical shape. The words EVA-01 were painted on the side in large letters. Gantries and catwalks sprawled around it for access.

And on one of the gantries, Shinji saw the imposing figure of the man he could no longer bring himself to call father.

Gendo Ikari noticed him, and as he fixed Shinji with his hard gaze, the younger Ikari looked down at his own feet. He heard footsteps on the metal floor coming in his direction.

But just as Shinji dreaded a reprimand, a hard, emotionless voice said, "You have done well. Better than I expected." And then a heavy hand descended onto his shoulder. "Your mother would be proud."

Shinji felt his resolve to avoid him quickly collapse. His chest constricted and every breath became an effort. He couldn't look up, couldn't face him. Too many times he had found himself being forced to do things against his will, to hurt people he wanted desperately to protect, to hate everything about his life. And all because this man had made him.

He had broken Shinji, as completely as Asuka was broken by the loss of her mother. But the Third Child had dealt with it differently. Rather than excel, he wanted to disappear; rather than survive and make others notice, he wanted to simply stop being.

And yet, despite everything Gendo had done to him, those few words of approval suddenly meant the world. Shinji squeezed his eyes shut. "F-Father..."

Gendo removed his hand. "But I still expect much from you."

As he moved past him, Shinji mustered the courage to lift his gaze, turning slightly but trying to avoid eye contact. He watched his father retreat, his steps heavy as if he carried a great weight within his body. Added to this, the straight cut of his uniform made his resemble a marble statue, ominous, unmoving. He was a massive man, the living embodiment of NERV's authority.

"F-Father?" Shinji's voice trembled audibly as he called out. He clenched his gloved hands into fists to keep the rest of him from trembling as well.

Gendo stopped. He didn't turn. "Yes?"

Not good. Shinji's knees were shaking, too. But this was the best chance he was likely to ever have, and too much had been said about his mother lately. He had to know. "May I ask you something about Mother?"

Gendo didn't have to answer. He never had before. He just needed to keep walking and Shinji wouldn't have the courage to stop him.

"You may."

Shinji swallowed hard. "She … how did she die?"

Gendo considered his request for a moment, and his silence predictably made Shinji feel awkward. He should have just let him leave. What could he possibly expect to accomplish with this? As if this man, having never shown the slightest concern for him, was about to answer his questions, as if he cared that knowing about his mother would bring a little piece of her back to Shinji. Finally, Gendo turned fully to Shinji, who kept his eyes firmly on the floor.

"It is not important how she died," Gendo said sternly. "What matters is why. She died because she loved you too much to let you live in such a miserable world."

Shinji could hear the accusation and bitterness in his father's voice, but also the same thing he had heard in Asuka's many times over the last few months, and perhaps only because of his experience with her was he now able to identify this emotion—hurt. And it shocked him. "B-Because of me?"

"Yes."

Shinji took a breath and felt like his heart had come to a stop. In a moment of sad grief, he realized he had been wrong about his father all these years. Too wrong. He had thought his father had never cared because he never showed otherwise. He never spoke of Yui and seemed like he would rather forget that she ever existed. But he did care, and losing her hurt him quite a lot.

And he blamed Shinji for it. That was why he treated his own son like a stranger, never with kind words or affection. That was why he had abandoned him to relatives when he was little and didn't bother with him until he needed him to pilot Eva.

His father blamed him.

There was only one thing Shinji could think of saying as he felt tears beginning to fill his pale blue eyes. "I … I am sorry."

"In the end, doing what she did was her decision," Gendo said, unmoved by his son's display of emotion. "You should not hold yourself accountable for that."

"But you do," Shinji whimpered, wiping the back of his gloved hands over his face, rubbing off his tears with pathetic desperation, all he could do to keep from crying. "You … you blame me, don't you?"

"I am not you."

The lump in Shinji's throat was too big to swallow. He choked. "B-but—"

"There is only one person in this world you must learn to live with. And it is not me or anyone else. There is only one person whose happiness should matter to you," Gendo paused to give Shinji a moment for the words to sink in. "Your mother believed that it was possible to find happiness in sharing yourself with others, and that we can give of ourselves to safeguard the future of those we love. But I know she was wrong."

Shinji was quiet, looking down at the floor as he fought to keep more tears at bay, still rubbing his eyes.

"By now you should understand this better than most people," Gendo said. "Human beings cannot overcome loss as long as they live. All we can do is bury it in our hearts."

Shinji thought about that, and about what Asuka said regarding them never losing their mothers, and how when she made him talk about her he had felt so dejected until she took his hand and shared her own pain with him. And then he realized that even though he badly missed her, he was also glad he could remember her. Her memory remained strong in him because he loved her, and the day he stopped missing her was the day he stopped loving her.

And so he refused to accept his father's truth.

"I … I don't believe that," Shinji brought up his head. "I won't forget about mother. I miss her, and it hurts, but I won't forget."

Gendo's hard, dark eyes met him, his features carved out of stone, completely devoid of any emotion, good or bad.

Shinji stood his ground, even though he knew he sounded like a little boy who missed his mother. For better or worse, that was exactly what he was. Gendo could admonish him for it, but it was the truth, and he would rather live missing his mother than forget her because it hurt too much. His father had forgotten; to Shinji that was yet another sin.

To his surprise, Gendo nodded. "Then you are a stronger man than I." He turned his back and began walking away slowly, hands in his pockets.

Shinji watched his father go in stunned silence, unable to say anything more. He stared for a long moment. Only when he heard Maya's voice over the loudspeaker bidding him to climb on board Unit-01 had he snapped out of it and trudged up the steps to the access hatch.

Once seated in darkness, the entry-plug filled with LCL. "Begin linkage sequence."

Shinji curled into a tight ball and buried his head behind his knees, a hundred thoughts and emotions crowding his head and tugging at his heart. So many that he didn't know what exactly he was feeling—sadness, regret, longing, all mixed into one. But all around him the entry-plug felt a little more welcoming than usual, as if she knew …

"Linkage sequence complete."

Maya's voice came back. "Harmonics are normal. Synch-ratio holding steady. All barriers have been cleared. Evangelion Unit-01 is now active."

* * *

Misato hung up, flipped her cell phone closed, and placed it on the table. Across from her, his hand around a cup of coffee, Nakayima looked interested.

"How did it go?"

"It was fine." Misato leaned back and crossed her legs, shifting her posture on the chair slightly to the side. The chairs in small, dimly illuminated night lounge were designed to be utilitarian, not comfortable.

He seemed unconvinced. "Not really a comforting answer."

Misato sighed, moving forward to place her elbows on the table. "Shinji's alright. That's all I can ask at this point. He's in the apartment with Asuka." She paused, bringing her mind back to their conversation before she had thought to call Shinji to make sure he had gotten home safely. "Anyway, what do you think?"

"I don't think you can rule it out," Nakayima said. "The fact of the matter is that we don't have enough information. We know, obviously, that Americans are not known for doing things without proper planning. You saw them when they were unloading Unit-08—they are obsessed with details."

Misato had made that very same observation to herself when she had gone to New Yokozuka to receive NERV's latest Eva unit, but she would rather not think about that. While she had not been happy with Unit-08's transfer, she could have never imagined the fate that awaited it and its young pilot. Misato still felt responsible for what happened, and she had no doubt she always would. In her mind, she should have done more to protect Keiko, even if it might have meant putting Shinji at risk. He, at the very least, would have been able to defend himself. Keiko had been little more than cannon fodder.

Or maybe, had she known how hard of a time Asuka was having, Misato might have prevented her from going out there. Of course, that was before she knew about the Tablet and what it did. After that Misato was not sure she could trust in the decisions of her superiors, and her sense of personal obligation to the children had long outweighed her sense of duty.

"You still have to wonder about their interest in the pilots," Nakayima said. "A weapon—and I'm sorry to speak of them that way but I'm being realistic—is useless without anyone who knows how to use it."

Inside Misato the old urge to resent him struggled against the knowledge that he, too, cared for one of the children. A former and badly-injured one at that.

"Ever since the Jet Alone fiasco, I haven't heard of any other sort of technology to replace the Eva, but that would be the only thing you would find Eva pilots useful for," Misato said. "Unless they really mean to take down the UN."

Nakayima shook his head. "I doubt even the Americans have that much influence. We don't live in a unipolar world anymore. There are no more superpowers."

"Well, it doesn't really matter, does it? Asuka doesn't want to go anywhere so there's no sense in working a deal now. And Shinji will do whatever she wants him to do. Even if she doesn't mean to, she's got him wrapped around her little finger."

The corners of his slanted eyes clenched. "You sound resentful."

"Towards Asuka?" Misato considered, then shook her head firmly. "I'm not. But she can be so stubborn. She's making progress, though. Believe it or not, she used to be a lot worse."

That seemed to catch Nakayima a little off guard. "I couldn't really imagine how anyone—"

"Be any worse?" Misato finished for him. She wasn't about to lie for Asuka. She wasn't about to say that she didn't deserve the reputation her attitude had garnered for her, and she wasn't about to say she was a nice girl. The Emerald Tablet might excuse some of her recent actions, particularly in relation to Unit-02 and Keiko, but the truth was Asuka had always done her best to keep people away, emotionally and often enough with physical assault. "Trust me, she's mellowed out lately. I guess being with Shinji really helps her deal with all that pain."

"Her pain?" Nakayima repeated mournfully, his gaze on his cup. "Miko still thinks she's responsible for Keiko getting hurt, even if she doesn't outright blame her anymore." Despite his own best intentions, it seemed clear he was not willing to let Asuka completely off the hook either. Then, as if to explain himself, he added, "It's not easy feeling sympathy for her."

"She wouldn't want it anyway—she'd think it makes her weak." Misato smiled weakly. "However, wanting and needing can be quite different things sometimes. She definitely could have used some earlier in her life."

Nakayima frowned. "We all have things in our past we'd like to forget. That isn't really an excuse."

"No," Misato quickly agreed. "But it can be an explanation. Asuka certainly made some bad choices all on her own, and I know how hard it made her to deal with, and almost impossible to actually help her. All the more reason I admire Shinji for getting through to her somehow."

"I see," Nakayima said after a pause. "I guess being a pilot doesn't really help either. After what Keiko went through, I know how hard piloting Eva can be."

Misato found that somewhat absurd. "And you didn't before?"

"I thought they were all hotshots, to be honest," he admitted. "Like fighter pilots, you know. But Keiko … it made her miserable. I felt sorry for her. She just didn't seem like someone who was cut out to do this." He stopped, and Misato saw the shadow of grief in his eyes. "I don't know how she's managed to make it this far."

"Don't be fooled—mellowed out or not, Asuka is very much a hotshot," Misato pointed out, trying to steer him clear of the subject of Keiko Nagara, which she knew caused him pain. "Shinji not so much."

"What about Rei Ayanami?"

"Rei is ..." Misato had to catch herself. She hadn't told him what she knew about Rei. There didn't seem to be much of a point in it. And Rei had proven that she wasn't just a thing; she was a friend to Shinji and a human being in her own right.

"Weird?" Nakayima prompted. "That's what I told Miko, anyway. It doesn't mean it's a bad thing, I guess. Just different."

Misato started to nod, but before she could say anything a dark haired young woman dropped herself in a chair at their table. She had green eyes and soft, round features, a can of Sunkist in one hand and a granola bar on the other. Her hair was short, and at once reminded Misato of Maya. The Major was momentarily thrown for a second. She looked sideways at Nakayima as if for confirmation then back at the woman, who she could tell was younger than her but not by much.

Although the lounge was small in comparison with other installations, and lacked any worthwhile amenities aside from a few vending machines, there were plenty of empty seats. The members of the command staff did not ordinarily mingle with the lower ranks, but there was no regulation against it.

Because of that, Misato tried to keep her voice polite. "Excuse us, but we are having a private conversation."

"I was counting on it." The woman set down her soda and began to fumble in her uniform pocket for something. After a moment, her slender fingers produced a small brown object, which she placed on the table in front of Misato. "A friend of yours told me to give this back."

Misato looked down at the object, and immediately recognized Asuka's United States passport. She had to fight to keep her surprise from showing. A quick glance at Nakayima showed he, too, had grasped the significance of this woman's presence. "Sato sent you?"

The woman nodded, opening the wrapper of her granola bar and taking a bite. "Not what you expected?"

"No." Nakayima frowned, suspicion overshadowing his features. "And it's not polite to pry."

"Sorry, but if you didn't want people overhearing maybe you shouldn't talk in the lounge," the woman said, flashing him a smile. "Location is everything."

"That doesn't explain why you are here," Misato said with a stern face, but she made a mental note to pick a better place to talk next time. "We haven't made any kind of deal yet."

"Mr. S. must have really liked you then," the woman said, chewing on her granola and regarding each of them with a keen glance. Misato saw a cutting intelligence behind those strangely wide green eyes, and knew she was being analyzed. "People in his position have the liberty to make judgment calls. That's because _he_ is good at what he does. We, on the other hand, just follow orders."

"Who's 'we'?" Misato's frown joined Nakayima's.

"My name is Fuunoka Sanada," the woman twisted her lips, as if she found the name distasteful. "My teammates call me Fuuka. There's twelve of us. Let's just say it doesn't matter who I'm with since you already know who I work for. "

Misato suspected the name was fake; she and Nakayima exchanged another look. Introducing yourself with a fake name was hardly the right way to gain someone's trust.

Fuuka finished her granola bar and took a gulp of her soda. "You don't have to trust me," she said, causing Misato to shift uncomfortably in her chair, "and I suspect you won't—you have no reason to. That's fine. Your trust is not necessary to complete my mission."

Misato felt a hitch inside her chest. "I don't care who you are, if you come anywhere near the children—"

Fuuka raised her hands, palms up in a gesture of surrender. "You misunderstand," she said, her voice loosing some of its bubbly tone. "My orders are to look after them. That's why Mr. S. bothered with setting up long term covers for us." She gestured her NERV uniform. "We have associations. We have identities. Heck, we even have jobs. For all intents and purposes we have lives. It's all an illusion, of course, but you have to admire a man who would go to such lengths for someone he barely knows."

"There's no way for me to know for sure, is there?" Misato said. "I have no way to know what your real intentions are. The best thing for me to do would be to turn you in to Section 2."

Fuuka shrugged. "Probably. But then, who would you rather have protecting those you love? Section 2's rent-a-cops or the most elite soldiers mankind has ever seen?"

Something about the returning confidence in the woman's voice, and the glimmer in her eyes to back it up, made Misato think of Asuka. The redhead was never hesitant when it came to declaring her elite status, to place herself on a pedestal even if such confidence was largely overstated. This woman seemed to share some of that. Sadly, that had come back to bite Asuka in the butt, bite her hard.

But Misato had to admit the underlying fact that made this proposal acceptable—that if Sato could infiltrate a dozen operatives inside NERV, he could also have easily gotten to the children on his own, but had chosen not to.

Beside her, Nakayima seemed uncomfortable. "I don't know what you think, Major, but I'm not sure we should trust the children's safety to mercenaries." He gave Fuuka a polite glance. "No offense."

"None taken. I'm not a mercenary." Fuuka returned his politeness with a smile, then turned her attention back to Misato. "The fact remains that you can't be everywhere at all times. Unless you plan on locking the children up, if someone is really going after them it's only a matter of time before they succeed. But I promise you, each and every one of us will give our lives to see that doesn't happen."

"You would die for people you have never met?"

"If that is the sacrifice my country demands of me, yes."

That seemed to disarm Nakayima's objection—Misato knew he had once been a soldier too and he understood that words like those were not spoken lightly, especially not by the people who willingly placed themselves in danger for something they believed in.

Americans placed service to their country above personal interests, even onto death. On the other hand, Misato didn't care for the abstract notion of country; her only similar loyalties were to NERV, and those had taken a beating lately. She placed the ones she cared for above everything else. But at the core, she recognized it was the same kind of commitment.

Misato found herself nodding. "Alright," she started slowly. "Lets say I go along with this, what do you want me to do?"

Fuuka reached into her pocket again. This times she produced a piece of paper the size of a napkin with a phone number written on it. She gave this to Misato. "My phone, just in case."

Misato understood.

"We will place an overwatch on the children," Fuuka continued. "We'll need all the intelligence we can get. School schedules, favorite hang-outs, most used train routes, things like that. We'll try to work on a non-contact approach, meaning they will never know we are there. No sense in disturbing their everyday lives if we can help it. But we will communicate with you, and you should get in touch with us if you have any concerns. We will also have to get certain … special gear inside the facility."

"I think we might be able to work something out," Misato said. "No weapons in the open, though. You don't want to raise suspicion."

"Of course. Nobody can know we are here. I think walking around with SCARs would give us right away." Fuuka paused, pressing her lips together in thought. "There's one more thing, Major."

Here it comes, Misato thought. Some unreasonable request she could not meet.

"It's more like a favor really," Fuuka added. "I want to see them. The Evangelions."

Misato blinked in surprise. "Oh?"

"I've heard so much about them it would feel like a wasted opportunity if I didn't get to see them. It's something I've been looking forward to since—well, for a long time."

But Misato noticed the catch in her voice, and it was not just curiosity that she sensed. She couldn't identify what it was. She looked at Fuuka intently, trying to determine if she was lying or merely steering clear of revealing some critical information while remaining as friendly as possible. She didn't think the woman had lied to her; it was more like what Asuka did when she wanted to avoid a subject she didn't like.

"Is it important?" Misato asked pointedly carefully measuring the woman's reaction.

Fuuka seemed to know this and gave no sign that might have tipped Misato off. Her eyes were steady, one hand skimming the top of the Sunkist can, the other below the table. Finally, she said, "It is to me."

Having expected much worse, that did not sound too bad to Misato. Certainly as the Chief of Operations it was within her authority, and it might just earn her a little good faith. She pushed back her chair and got up, signaling for Fuuka to come with her and placing a hand on Nakayima's right shoulder as she walked around behind him.

"Go see Miko," she told him. "See if she can arrange some sort of special shipment for us."

Nakayima dropped his shoulders a bit. "You know, last time I bothered her at work she drafted me into helping her scrape off some dried-up LCL from a cooling pipe. That is yucky stuff."

"Imagine being inside the Evas," Misato told him, "sitting in it, breathing it."

"Good point. I'll talk to Miko. I'm sure I'll stink the next time you see me."

Misato gave him a sympathetic shake of her head as she led Fuuka out of the lounge. Outside, the hallway was a long, brightly lit metal corridor indistinct from a thousand others in Central Dogma. It had taken Misato quite a long time to memorize the layout of the place, and even now she avoided the parts of it she was not familiar with. Shinji often made fun of her for poor sense of direction, and Asuka had once declared it was unbelievable how she could be in charge of saving the world, not to mention minding the pilots themselves, when she couldn't find where she parked her car in the morning.

Apparently, hyperbole came as naturally to the redhead as her ability to pilot Eva. Misato hoped that now that they were together some of Shinji's tactfulness would rub off on her.

As they came to an intersection Misato took a right, her pace brisk enough so that the few technicians milling about would stay clear. Holding up the third highest ranking officer in NERV when she had a purpose was a bad idea. Fuuka stayed close behind her, looking around. Less than fifty yards away the corridor opened into a large atrium spanning two dozen levels. The ceiling was angled upwards, revealing this part of the structure to be close to one of the sides of Central Dogma's pyramid shaped building, and was made up of glass and crossing steel beams creating a diamond pattern.

Beyond the glass, high above Central Dogma, the Geo-Front's ceiling could be seen, like some kind of darkened artificial sky. The buildings that had once populated Tokyo-3 remained locked inverted in their combat configurations, as they had been since Unit-00's blast had flooded the city above—gray monoliths waiting to one day rise again.

"It's quite impressive," Fuuka whispered, staring through the glass as they stepped onto the escalator, headed to a higher level. "The Nevada branch looked like a slum compared to this."

"You were in Nevada?" Misato turned around on the step she was occupying. Because of their relative positions on the escalator, she had to look down to meet Fuuka's eyes.

Fuuka nodded, bringing her gaze up. "I delivered the pilot. Well, my unit did. But I was unit leader so he was my responsibility. Of course, we were SOF and not NERV personnel so we weren't allowed to stay for the activation test. Our job was done." She stopped, and Misato could tell she was having trouble deciding if she should continue. "He was a very nice boy—in less than a week he managed to befriend everyone in my unit."

Eva Unit-04—Misato remembered what a disaster that had turned into. An entire NERV branch had simply vanished into nothingness. To this day the Americans refused to acknowledge the loss, listing the branch personnel as MIA, holding onto the hope that there might a way to bring them back. There was no telling if the incident might have been the result of contact with an Angel, but because of Unit-03 eventually being taken over, rumors had circulated that the American Evas were both exposed during some kind of experiment. Misato wouldn't put it past them. At least Unit-08 had been sound, right until Asuka …

Misato forced herself to stop thinking about that—she knew it wasn't the German girl's fault. It did seem, however, that American built Evangelions suffered from very bad luck.

"People like him make me wonder if we got this right," Fuuka said after a long moment of silence. "These pilots are supposed to fight inhuman monsters because no one else can. But even though he was supposed to protect us, when I was with him I couldn't help thinking that all I wanted to do was protect him."

In a way, Misato was glad to hear that. But she was also aware that she had no means by which to verify that information—the Nevada branch records were lost and SOF, by their very nature, kept no records. Sato would have realized her affection for the children when they met and Fuuka could have easily concocted this story to get by her guard. Still, she sounded sincere. Carefully insulating herself against the possibility of betrayal, Misato decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Twenty minutes, another escalator and a very long elevator ride later, Misato swiped her card in an electronic lock and the door opened to admit her to one of the observation rooms overlooking the main cage, where Unit-01 was being cooled and prepared for storage. Fuuka walked to the window and peered down at the massive concrete and steel box beyond. One of the reasons it had taken so long to re-activate the Evangelions after the last battle was because of all the damage done to the cages, but the maintenance crews had done an extraordinary job effecting repairs. Unit-01's cage shimmered an unblemished silver.

"When they first told me about the Evas, I though they were the greatest weapon ever built," Fuuka said absently, not noticing Misato as she came to stand next to her. "I realized later that you can tell who we are as a species by the ways we choose to arm ourselves …"

Down below technicians scampered around like ants, securing cables, moving equipment, manning consoles, and clearing the catwalks as Unit-01 began to move ever so slowly on its huge, upright gantry towards a large gate outlined in strips of black and yellow. Through the darkened space beyond the gate, Misato could see Unit-02's gleaming red form.

"And how we choose to arm our children."

Misato agreed silently but stopped herself short of showing it.

"I feel I should warn you," she said, narrowing her eyes darkly. "I care for these children like they are my own, and if you do anything to hurt them—anything that might even accidentally result in them getting hurt, I'll kill you."

Fuuka kept her gaze firmly on Unit-01, as if seeking something from it. "I understand."

* * *

Red light pulsed through the elevator as it descended down a large shaft to one of Terminal Dogma's LCL recycling facilities. No one spoke, but the highly restricted access to this routed indicated to Ritsuko Akagi that security was not the reason Commander Ikari remained silent. Given Unit-01's successful activation earlier today, she would have expected at least an inquiry. Once again they had two fully-functional Evangelions—that should merit some discussion.

Another flash of red passed the elevator's sides, casting all the occupants within a crimson glare through the mesh that made up the walls. Ritsuko looked behind her shoulder, where Rei Ayanami stood perfectly silent in the center of the elevator. The light passed and darkness surrounded them again, a hint of red still emanating from Rei's eyes. Outside the elevator, updrafts from the bowels of the facility rose like a roaring wind, carrying with it the scent of dried blood characteristic of the LCL.

The Commander had not said anything since climbing in the elevator. Neither had Rei. Ritsuko could have done without her, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to tolerate her presence. And yet she knew they, or at least the Commander, would not be coming all this way unless he wanted something. Gendo Ikari did not do things idly.

For Ritsuko's part, one of the LCL recycling units that purified the substance so it could be sent back into the closed system to be re-used had malfunctioned, possibly a clog. In order to ensure a proper interface and to keep the pilots healthy, only clean LCL could be circulated into the entry-plug. Like other fluids, it tended to gather imperfections even just being stored. These could make the pilots sick, though every pilot had different tolerances to different levels of pollution.

Swallowing and breathing the complex liquid meant that most problems involved the digestive and respiratory systems, critical areas that would inhibit combat performance. First time pilots usually got sick with what reports termed "LCL poisoning." The effects where similar to those produced by bad sushi, and were no more long-lasting than a few hours of vomiting and diarrhea. Over time their bodies got used to it. But if the LCL contained impurities, those would be taken into their system and make them really sick.

Ritsuko might not hold the same sentimental regard for the children as Misato did, but she wasn't about to risk poisoning over something as simple as a clogged pump.

At times like this it seemed her life had been reduced to her uses; the only reason Commander Ikari kept her around was the same reason he had to let her out of her cell several months ago—Ritsuko was the only one who could make this place function. He needed her in this way, even if in no other. She had thought she could accept that, and that eventually she would become resigned to this fate. But hope died last, and she had hoped that things would change. They hadn't. So Ritsuko's dejection turned to denial, then to anger.

And that anger had led her to call on Musashi Kluge. Too much was invested in that to fall back now. Too much was risked. Ritsuko had known from the start she had sealed her fate as far as Ikari was concerned, but when she looked inside herself she realized that she had stopped caring. Her uses kept her alive; her desire for revenge gave her meaning. But appearances had to be maintained, regardless of how she might feel.

"You are rather silent," Ritsuko said, her gaze moving from Rei, whom she had been glaring at, to Commander Ikari. "I had assumed you would tell me why you wanted to ride down with me, but I guess you are not required."

The Commander remained perfectly still as he spoke. "Does it bother you?"

Ritsuko found the idea ridiculous. "Of course not. I just never imagined you to be the sort who likes to ride on the elevators for the fun of it. I suppose it's your prerogative."

"I want Rei to see her."

Ritsuko did not have to be told who he mean by 'her'. It was obvious enough. She had to fight to prevent a grin from forming on her face. Some months ago she had let Rei into Lilith's chamber without permission. Rei already knew what lay at the very bottom of Terminal Dogma, past Heaven's Door—she had been down there before to retrieve the Lance of Longinus—but when Rei asked where the creature came from, Ritsuko answered.

Again Ritsuko cast her eyes towards Rei, and was struck by how much she resembled both her genetic donor, long dead, and Shinji. Even her short hair, but for its color, appeared the same. "It had to happen eventually," she said. "We can only have our true nature denied to us for so long before we start asking questions."

"There is another reason," the Commander said, his voice emotionless. "Shinji asked me about Yui today."

Now Ritsuko understood. This wasn't some carefully constructed scheme to reveal NERV's secrets to the person on whom their futures depended, but the act of man who realized he was running out of time. "Do you think he suspects anything?"

"He must know by now," Ikari said. "My son is not an idiot, regardless of what the Second Child would like to believe."

"You know he's in love with her, correct?" Ritsuko added. "He told Misato during the last battle. I had expected something like that to happen sooner. Desperate people in desperate situations tend to cling to the first thing they find."

But the Commander, by his silence, made it clear he did not agree. After a moment, he said, "I never thought he would find someone to love. And certainly not someone like the Second. She is the last person I would have chosen."

Ritsuko nodded. Asuka could be quite a handful, especially for someone like Shinji. "You can override Misato's custody should you want to separate them."

"He hates me enough as it is," Ikari replied. "In any case, such bonds can be of great benefit. When we have something to defend, we are more likely to be willing to fight."

"Or they can shatter us on the inside," Ritsuko said, aware that she did not need to remind him.

He did not even bother giving her a warning look, instead turning his head to look at Rei. If the albino noticed she was being examined, she didn't show it. She was still staring out at the shaft. Her skirt fluttered in the updraft caused by the moving air around them, but otherwise she was perfectly unmovable, like she wasn't really alive.

Ritsuko looked up, where a ring of white light the size of a thumb signaled the top of the shaft, almost a mile up. "What did you tell Shinji?"

"Only what he had a right to know."

"All children miss their mothers." As Ritsuko lowered her gaze she thought she saw Rei's red eyes shift in her direction. "It is one of the strongest bonds in nature."

"Unfortunately, that is the curse of self-awareness," Ikari said. "Even the bonds that are formed between people lead, inevitably, to separation and death." He turned his head to Rei. "Do you understand?"

"Yes."

He nodded, which Ritsuko found amusing as Rei hadn't said anything except what he wanted her to say. "The existence of these bonds and death is a contradiction."

"Bonds are made to be broken," Ritsuko said cynically.

"And new ones are made. Over and over. My son is the perfect example."

So is Rei, Ritsuko thought. Gendo Ikari didn't know what she did. He didn't know that Rei had been routinely checking up on Keiko Nagara since the girl had been moved out of quarantine and into the Cranial Nerv Ward. He didn't know that Rei, Ritsuko suspected, had become attached to her, and that it couldn't have worked better for Ritsuko.

If Rei was really attached, maybe even in love, Ikari had already failed. The scenario had never accounted for the second Rei dying, but they had replacements. From the moment Ritsuko destroyed the dummy there was no longer any option. Rei, this one, would be the last.

Finally, the elevator began to slow. The bottom of the shaft appeared as concentric circles of red light. The elevator came to a stop with a metallic sound, locking into place on its frame, and the door slid open. The Commander the led way, silent except for his footsteps. There was no echo, the chamber was simply too large, its domed ceiling too far above their heads.

"I must check the recycling intake for circuit six," Ritsuko informed as Ikari and Rei moved towards the entrance to Gauf's Room, the threshold to Lilith. "Let me know if you need anything."

Neither the Commander nor his blue-haired creation turned back to look her. Anger burned through Ritsuko like acid at being dismissed so easily. A part of her knew she was asking for it, and that she still wished things had been different. But Gendo Ikari had made his choice; his bond, the one binding him to his wife, remained as strong as ever. And he didn't fear death. The contradiction of which he spoke did not exist within him.

The worst thing she could do to him was making sure he lived long enough to realize that he would never see Yui again … because of her.

Ritsuko retrieved a small flashlight from her lab coat pocket and followed behind the beam of light, into the darkness, all alone.

* * *

In the weeks since she had awoken from her coma, her room had transformed from little more than a bleak and sterile cell to something more to the liking of its fourteen-year-old occupant. Dolls and stuffed animals had accumulated on top of the EKG machine meant to monitor her vital signs. A television set had been placed by her bedside. A small, hand-held video game device lay on the white sheets. Red and white flowers decorated the interior, and buffered some of the stale, disinfectant-laden air with their own scent.

But for all the additions, this was still a hospital room. Though some of her bandages had been removed, Keiko's broken right arm remained in a cast, as did her right leg. Every few days the nurses would come in and remove the plastic fittings around her leg cast to clean out the wound underneath. She had been told that one of Unit-08's ribs had broken and penetrated the entry-plug, ripping off most of her thigh.

The first time Keiko saw the wound she had cried—the skin was sunken in almost to the bone, looking as though her leg were made out of plastic and someone had caved it in. A nasty scar ran from the top of her knee to her upper thigh. It was an awful, heartbreaking shade of black and blue. She could not see any signs of the rods that kept her femur and fibula together, but she knew there were dozens surgically inserted into them. If the bones healed properly, she would be able to use her leg to stand. No matter what they did, she would need a crutch to walk.

But somehow, the awkward girl who was easily upset and completely failed as an Eva pilot, had gotten over it.

Keiko knew, from the moment she woke up in this room, that she had made a choice to come back. And even if she didn't understand how it happened, she had known when she made that choice that she wanted to live her life as best she could. That it wouldn't be easy. That it would hurt. But that was what it meant to be alive. _That_ she understood.

And when she laughed, for the first time in ages, she found it didn't hurt quite so much.

"I can't believe you want to ask him that," she told the albino girl sitting on the chair next to her bed. "I can picture the look on his face."

Rei's own gentle face remained non-puzzled, but she blinked a few times more than normal to indicate she was confused. "I should not?"

"Well, you shouldn't think you'll get a serious answer," Keiko replied, stiffing a giggle.

"Why?"

The former Eva pilot almost felt silly having to explain this to her. She moved a little higher on the pillow that propped her up. She was strong enough to sit on her own, but Miko didn't want her straining herself and it wasn't quite as comfortable. Her mauled leg was still joined together within a brace, making any mobility somewhat of a complicated issue. Though not held in traction any longer, it, like her back, was propped up.

The sheets were pushed down to her waist, bunching up. The hospital gown she wore was a thin, flimsy garment for ease of care. At least she _could_ use the bathroom now, but it was slow, time-consuming process and she needed help and she still had to wear a diaper at night just in case. Thanks to the cardiac leads stuck to various parts of her body and the IV drips inserted on her left wrist, Keiko still sometimes felt like a fly caught in the middle of a spiderweb.

Despite all of that, however, Keiko strove to behave like a model patient. The nurses seemed pleased to be in her charge, and said she was easy to deal with, particularly compared to a certain redhead.

Keiko couldn't believe some of the stories the nurses had told her about Asuka—how attempts to treat her often devolved into kicking and screaming fits, scratching and biting; how she had to be forcibly sedated at times before anyone would go near her. On the other hand, Shinji, they told her, was much like herself. He actually seemed to want to get better, if only through apathy. The nurses all liked him.

It was no surprise, then, that Rei seemed to like him as well.

"Because Shinji is a boy," Keiko said after the long pause. "And boys can't answer questions like that. Love is WAY more complicated than that. I mean, I've never …" Even as she spoke she was aware that she had started to blush. "I mean some boys are cute but love is something else. It's supposed to do weird things to you."

"I do not understand."

Keiko was too embarrassed. She let her gaze drift off, taking in her surroundings while trying to come up with an answer.

Finally, Keiko sighed and shook her head. The doctors had told her not to move her head too much because of the injuries to her back, but somehow when she was with Rei Ayanami she healthier than she ever had before. Miko was good company, and she appreciated the constant care and attention, but talking to Rei was like talking to someone who would never judge her in a way that nobody else did.

"Miko says it makes the world smell differently," Keiko said. "I've never—well, I've never been in love so I wouldn't know."

"You are still young," Rei said. She placed her hand on top of Keiko's, gently running her thumb along the other girl's knuckles.

Keiko felt a warm smile spreading across her face. "I know. I know," she said remembering something that had come up on one of Rei's previous visits. "I owe you for helping me see that."

"There is no need to be grateful," Rei said. "I have learned much from you as well. I have begun to define my own existence, apart from what I believed to be my purpose, and discover my own truth."

Keiko made a face. "You know I don't get any of that 'the truth' stuff. But I'm glad if I helped you somehow."

The knock on the door made Keiko jump, causing a spike of pain to shoot up her back. Rei didn't let go of her hand and she found herself squeezing it. Nobody knocked on her room anymore—both Rei and Miko were so familiar with her there was no need. The same could be said about the nurses, who came in daily to feed and change her. She had gotten used to of all their presences.

Without giving it a second thought, Keiko called out as loudly as she had the strength to, "Come in. It's not locked."

The door slid open, and the first thing Keiko noticed was long, gorgeous golden-red hair held up by two pointy red clips and bright blue eyes. Like the girl sitting next to her, the new visitor wore a school uniform, but her skirt was shorter, well above above her knees, and her blouse was better pressed and a much cleaner white. Her arrogant posture had not changed one bit—legs apart, shoulders stiff, back straight, nose up in the air.

Keiko's heart rose into her throat and became stuck there. "Ah-Asuka?"

Asuka chewed on her lip, considering the scene before her, eyes carefully but determinately moving from Keiko to Rei. She didn't look very happy. "Wondergirl, I have something to say to her. Get out."

That sharp, shrill voice brought back a lot of painful memories, and Keiko realized that a part of her did not want to be left alone with Asuka. The redhead had always been a source of abuse and tears, and even after things seemed to have finally turned the corner, she had ended up hurting her. Mercifully, she remembered few details of the battle. After the Angel took everything over, her mind had broken up into little pieces, leaving only disjointed glimpses. What she remembered afterward was Unit-02 ripping into something.

Only when she became aware of the pain—pain everywhere, at all once—did she realize that something was herself.

Rei hesitated, seeming uncertain as to what she should do. She looked at Keiko for direction. "It's okay," Keiko murmured, weakly and not sounding very convinced.

Rei took her at her word. Letting go of her hand, she stood up and walked past Asuka, who did not bother steeping aside. She just stood there stiffly, her eyes now fixed on Keiko, her features set into a firm mask of angry determination.

Keiko gulped as Rei closed the door behind her, leaving the two other girls alone in the room. Once Rei was gone, so was Keiko's courage. She cast her gaze down at herself, unable to hold Asuka's any longer.

"I didn't come to say I'm sorry," Asuka blurted after a long, awkward moment.

Keiko just nodded. What did it say about their relationship—if it could even be called that—when the thought that Asuka might apologize hadn't crossed her mind? But then …

"Th-then why did you come?" Keiko asked, focusing on the fingers of her right hand, sticking out of the solid white cast in which her arm was encased and resting over her chest. With only the loose hospital gown to cover her, she felt exposed to Asuka's harshness and completely helpless.

"I'm not here for you." Asuka shifted her weight and took a step forward. The pleats along the hem of her skirt opened up with her stride. She stopped next to Keiko's bedside, beside the chair Rei had occupied. "I'm here for myself. I'm here because … I want to find a way to live with what happened."

Keiko had spent enough time with nothing to do that this scenario had played in her head repeatedly, and she had tried to think about what she would tell Asuka when she saw her. But now that she was here, Keiko realized she never actually thought it would happen. Going into battle together had obviously not changed Asuka's attitude towards her. And yet at the same time, she was here, wasn't she?

"Asuka, it's okay." It was the only thing she could think of saying—what she had told Rei and Miko, and what she thought Asuka would want to hear. "I don't blame you."

But Asuka quickly reminded her she was not like the other two girls who cared for her. "I think you should."

Keiko eyebrows came up in confusion. "Why?"

"Why _not_?" Asuka's voice rose with her temper. "What reason could you possibly have not to blame me? I tried to understand. I tried to think that maybe, just maybe I could just brush this off and move on with my life. That's what I want to do. But I can't. And it doesn't make any sense. You should hate me!"

"But I don't," Keiko said timidly. "I just—"

Asuka's pretty face twisted in anger, sharp brows drawn together, teeth bared. She stormed closer to Keiko and bent over her, shoving her hands violently on either side of her head, making the pillow sink deeply under each one of her palms.

Keiko stared up at the wide, burning blue sapphires of Asuka's eyes, framed by flowing locks of her hair spilling over tensed shoulders. Supporting herself on her arms, she was only a few inches away from the bedridden girl, who had nowhere to go, trapped against her own pillow.

And suddenly Keiko was afraid of Asuka again.

"How the hell can you be so stupid?"

"W-what?"

Asuka grunted in response, sweeping her hands down to the front of Keiko's gown, clutching her collar and pulling up. Pain, hot and sharp shot into the back of Keiko's head like a knife, and she found a scream forming in her throat before she could help it. Asuka pulled her up further, lifting her upper body from the bed. She had to flex the muscles in her neck to keep her head from flopping backwards, and it hurt, badly.

"Sto-stop!" Stuttering from the pain, Keiko raised her left hand, the only one she could move, and grasped one of Asuka's wrists. "A-Asuka, you are hurting me!"

"Do you think it makes you better than me?" Asuka yelled, tightened her grip. "Do you think it'll make people like you?"

Desperate, the brunette shook her head.

"_Then why?_"

"I don't want to!" Keiko whimpered. Somehow she managed to fix her pleading brown eyes on Asuka's furious blue ones. She didn't know what to do—what to say. She was helpless and terrified, as she had been the last time she was inside her Eva. "Please, it hurts!"

The angry redhead held her just a moment longer before gently setting her back down on the bed. Even this made Keiko's overstressed nerves scream with agony and she winced.

Then Asuka hung her head.

"I'm … I … " she muttered and finally let go, slinking backwards so that she wasn't looming threateningly over Keiko.

Tears that she didn't remember shedding blurred Keiko's vision. She wiped them off with her good hand, and when she could see again the angry expression on Asuka's face had been replaced by one of grim resentment … and so much hurt Keiko could hardly fathom it.

She forced down her fear, and the urge to ring the emergency button to call for a nurse. "Why … why does it bother you so much?"

"I wouldn't forgive you," Asuka said quickly.

"That doesn't mean other people wouldn't," Keiko ventured, feeling bolder as the physical pain receded. The emotional pain, the pain she could feel in both Asuka and her own voice, lingered. "It doesn't mean I shouldn't. It's my choice."

Asuka sat on Rei's chair, her shoulders slumped, head still down. By any possible measure, the German girl was right. She should hate her, but Keiko found comfort in the fact that she just didn't.

"It's okay."

"How is it okay?" Asuka jerked her head up, showing bristling blue eyes, and took in the whole room with one broad sweep of her slender left arm. "How is any of this okay? Are you blind too? You are stuck here because of something I did. And you are not even angry with me! Don't you even want to ask me what happened? _Why_ it happened?"

"It wouldn't change anything, would it?" Keiko said solemnly. "I would still be here. I don't have control over a lot these days, but I can still decide what I feel in my heart." She brought her hand to her chest. "That day, before we went out, you said you would protect me. I don't think you would have said that if you really meant to hurt me. Definitely not in front of Shinji. Would you?"

Asuka continued to glower, but the mention of Shinji Ikari seemed to blunt some of her edge.

"No."

"See?" Keiko said, her voice as upbeat as she could make it. "You are not so bad."

And she also remembered how worried Shinji had been for them both, how he told Asuka he wished to go with her. She might have been frightened out of her senses, but even she could tell how much he cared about Asuka. And though she had tried to hide it, it was obvious Asuka cared for him, too. It was to ease his mind that she had promised to protect her.

"When I saw the N2 mine go off in front of you …" Keiko trailed off, the terror of that moment still much too fresh to describe, "then the Angel came after me. I couldn't do anything. You were right about me all along. I didn't belong out there. But I think you would have protected me if you could have. How can I blame you for that?"

Asuka made a sour face. "_I _would blame you."

"I guess that just means we are not the same," Keiko said, shrugging her shoulders as best as her injuries would allow.

For Keiko that was not a new conclusion. She had a long time to think about how she felt towards Asuka, and even discussed some of it with Rei. No one, not even Asuka, she believed, would have told her she would protect her only to turn against her. Miko had previously told her Asuka said she didn't mean for what happened, and that solidified Keiko's belief.

But Asuka didn't seem to like that answer any more than she did the person answering. Her brow flattened in seriousness and she looked down at her hands.

"You know," the redhead started slowly, a hollow tone in her voice, "after it happened I knew there was something wrong. It all felt wrong—me, Unit-02, the whole world. I wouldn't even wear my neural connectors. And one night I … I thought about killing myself."

The words fell on Keiko's chest like an anvil. She gasped, her left hand clutching the front of her gown as if to brace herself. Her mouth hung open but she couldn't speak, leaving her to stare in terrified silence at the girl she admired—the girl whom she wanted to emulate, to grow up and be like. The haughty, beautiful, popular, courageous Asuka Langley Soryu … thought about killing herself?

Despite all Keiko had been through and survived, this was finally a heartbreaking blow.

Indeed, something felt broken in her chest. The gasp had knocked the wind out of her and when she tried to breath again she couldn't. Her throat closed in on itself.

The EKG began to go wild, beeping loudly in an intolerably fast rhythm as her heart accelerated. Fighting an all out fit of panic, Keiko squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to breathe again, slowly and deeply. It was like trying to suck in a vacuum. She twisted on the bed, almost knocking her broken leg off its pedestal.

"Hey, Nagara, are you alright?" From somewhere outside the grip of asphyxia, she heard Asuka's voice.

Keiko shook her head, and tried to say that she couldn't breath, but all that came out was a ragged whisper. Then she felt Asuka's hands pressing down on her shoulders and realized she had come very close again.

"Calm down," Asuka whispered in her ear. "Think about breathing. Do it slowly."

Keiko did, clearing her mind, and loosening up. Her body stopped struggling, and she concentrated all her admittedly limited willpower on breathing. Strangely, perhaps even ridiculously given her situation, her mind focused on the last time she had been in the entry-plug, crying and begging for Asuka to come and save her. Asuka never came. But this time Asuka was there. And that gave Keiko strength.

"Just slow it down and breathe. You can do it."

Slowly, Keiko's breath returned, her chest stopped heaving and resumed a more normal pace. When she opened her eyes, she saw Asuka leaning over her in concern, her face so close she could have kissed her.

"God, don't scare me like that," the redhead hissed, raising her hand as if to slap her then thinking better about it. "I've been through enough crap over you already."

Keiko swallowed a lump in her throat. Her voice came again as a ragged whisper. "So-sorry ..." She tried to sit, but her battered body failed and laid down again. "Help me."

Asuka placed an arm across the back of her shoulders and gently lifted Keiko into a sitting position on the bed. The brunette girl cradled her broken arm to prevent it from slipping down and falling into her lap. Then she clutched the front of her gown and continued taking deep breaths. Asuka held her up until she was sure Keiko could do it on her own. The Second Child was sitting on the edge of the mattress now, her shoulders turned, a steadying hand resting between Keiko's shoulder blades.

The door behind them opened, and a nurse, clad in a pristine white uniform entered the room. Rei came in next.

"What's wrong?" the nurse said in concerned tones.

"I'm okay now," Keiko replied between gasps of air. "I couldn't breath. Asuka helped me."

The nurse gave Asuka a strange look, but she said nothing. Instead the nurse reached around the bed and pulled out a plastic breathing mask, which she then looped over Keiko's nose and mouth. Meanwhile, Asuka had inched away slightly, looking anywhere but at the nurse and the brunette girl next to her.

Keiko took a deep breath and felt clean, cool air filling her lungs. The nurse checked the mask, fitting tightly to her, then the air supply. Then she turned to Asuka. "You should probably leave now."

"No." The word was out of Keiko's mouth before she thought it. She looked up pleadingly at the nurse. "Please, just a little longer."

The nurse regarded Asuka sternly, and Keiko thought she wanted to put some fault on the redhead for this incident, but she relented in the end. After admonishing Asuka and instructing her to ring the emergency page immediately if something was wrong, she left the room. Rei remained at the door a moment longer, looking at them, then stepped back and closed the door again.

Keiko had never seen someone scold Asuka, and she assumed the girl would take it badly, lashing out as she always did. But Asuka lowered her head. Then Keiko remember the shock that had triggered her fit in the first place.

"You … you thought about—" she couldn't quite say it and choked on the words. The breathing mask made her sound muffled. "How could you?"

"I didn't know what was wrong with me," Asuka murmured, still looking down. "I was having nightmares every night, very bad ones, and I so afraid I would hurt someone else—someone I cared about this time—that I thought it would be best if I weren't around to hurt them." She raised her head and fixed Keiko with a glare. "If you tell anyone—"

"I won't. I promise." Though not bound by the bonds that existed between friends, Keiko would never dream of divulging such a thing. She could hardly believe it herself, and she had heard it directly from Asuka. Others would doubtless think she was lying should she ever tell.

That seemed to be enough for Asuka.

"You were always wrong about me, you know," she said, her voice heavy with the seriousness of introspection. "The truth is that you were always just another ignorant girl."

Keiko's chest tightened again at the insult, but she knew, and had known for a long time, that Asuka was right. She wheezed laboriously to control herself. "I…"

"You never understood what it was like to be me. You never thought that maybe there was more to me than a shallow idol. I was all you wanted for yourself, so naturally you thought I was happy with being me. But the reality is that the me that exists under the surface is not the same girl I show the world. You wanted me to like you, but how could I like anyone when I couldn't even stand myself?"

From the way she spoke, Keiko finally realized that Asuka had suffered for a long time—that despite the facade she presented to the other girls at school, the smiles hid a deep sort of pain.

"I didn't know."

But Keiko, too, had suffered, mostly because of Asuka. Keiko, too, had struggled to hide how she really felt, taking abuse, crying, but always coming back for more because she didn't want to be left alone. And why? What was the point in being with others if it hurt you so badly you had to sneak into a bathroom stall to cry? She had thought no one else in the world could have shared that kind of pain.

Incredibly, it turned out Asuka, of all people, did.

The moment of weakness having passed, Asuka quickly reverted to her usual, smarmy self. "You aren't that sharp anyway." She snickered. "The idiot isn't either. I guess that explains some things about both of you."

Being spoken of in the same manner as Shinji made Keiko feel good.

"We are together now, by the way."

"I knew it!" Keiko sat up a little straighter. But her excitement was quickly tapered by the bad memories. Her head dropped, locks of her loose brown hair falling over her brow. "Sorry, I ..."

"You were right that time," Asuka said, lacking any hint of the aggression she had shown in the gym when Keiko unknowingly teased her, a whole lifetime ago it seemed. "I really wanted to hurt you after that. I probably would have if Miho hadn't stopped me. It was like opening a wound I didn't know I had. I even hated you for a while."

Hatred, Keiko repeated to herself, that was how Asuka dealt with her pain. If only she had known …

An unusual wistfulness filled Asuka's face. "But then … that day in the infirmary, you cried about your mother. And I think I understood something about you."

Whatever that might be, however, Asuka didn't say. She turned her head away, looking at the set of dolls sitting on top of the EKG machine. The lights glinted brightly off her glossy neural connectors.

Keiko could not recall ever seeing Asuka without her signature accessories. They seemed as much as permanent trait as the rest of her character. They were who she was, as an Eva pilot, certainly, but also as someone who wanted to attract attention and display her special place in the world for everyone to see. But they were still made out of plastic, and could be broken—like the pilots themselves. Like Keiko had been.

As an Eva pilot, although briefly, Keiko had worn her own set of neural connectors, less pointy than Asuka's and yellow. They were proof that she, too, was unique and special, chosen from among many. She regretted now that she had never worn them to school. Never showed anyone.

"I still don't like you," Asuka said absently, her gaze still fixed with strange intensity on the dolls. "And you are still a crybaby. But if you want us to be friends I'll be alright with that."

Keiko noticed only belatedly that one of the dolls had bright orange-red hair. It was a gift from Miko—how could she have missed that before? Then her eyes flew open and she stared at Asuka. "What?"

"At least until you get better," Asuka added nonchalantly, turning her head to face Keiko again.

"But—"

"Don't make a big deal out of it." Asuka dismissed her with a wave of her hand, brushing off the significance of her words. "Just get rid of that doll."

Keiko knew there was more to it than she wanted to let on, there had to be, but she was so glad to be acknowledged that she didn't question her. She nodded eagerly, ignoring the dull ache from her already strained neck. Her chest felt suddenly full. And while she considered that any show of affection might cause the snobbish redhead to change her mind about her, when the tears began to roll down her cheeks, she made no attempt to stop them.

Surrendering to her emotions, Keiko threw out her left arm, pulled Asuka in, and wrapped her in a tight hug. At first Asuka was too stunned to do more than squeal in surprise, and for a moment she even let Keiko hug her without much of a struggle. Then, as if remembering who she was supposed to be, she started bickering. Very, very loudly.

* * *

His head resting on his folded arms atop the kitchen table, Shinji looked at the hands on the clock. Asuka had been gone for more than two hours now, and while she had assured him she likely wouldn't be back before dinner, Shinji was worried. Repeated calls to her cell phone had gone unanswered, met only by the sharply worded message of her voice mail. And with their Section 2 surveillance tightened up Asuka was probably as safe as she had ever been.

Still, he had not forgotten that Misato believed someone might have tried to kidnap them a few weeks before. What if she was right? What if someone had gotten to Asuka before Section 2 could protect her, and she was, even now, being taken away to a place where he would never see her again?

That last thought made Shinji's stomach twist so hard it hurt.

Was he being paranoid? Asuka would have certainly thought so. Though she believed Misato had acted with genuine concern for them in beefing up their Section 2 protection, she didn't buy the whole kidnap scenario. She believed she was too important, too indispensable to be put at risk by NERV or anyone else. As one of few people who could pilot Eva, her security—and, of course, Shinji's—was a matter of world stability. No matter how much the Japanese government disliked NERV, they would never risk the pilots.

Shinji had to admit that Asuka made some good points, but he couldn't help being a worry-wart. It was what he did, and the way he felt for her only caused him to worry more than normal. If only she would call he would feel better. Or maybe her cell phone had run out of power. Maybe she had turned it off. But why would she do that? She had to know he would worry.

They had parted right after school, but Asuka wouldn't tell him where she was going, only that she needed to take care of something. He thought that was strange. Always careful not to stifle her with his concern, he didn't push the issue. She said she would be back before dinner and ran off. That was the last time he saw her.

Shinji bit his lip. The hands on the clock moved slow—so slow that he couldn't take it anymore and closed his eyes.

In the silence, the tick-tock seemed augmented, creating an echo where there shouldn't have been. It sounded eerie, further upsetting him.

The kitchen was warm; it always seemed to be even when the rest of the apartment was cold. Shinji had changed into a loose shirt and shorts just after getting home, but the comfortable clothing did little to help put his mind at ease. Trying to focus on his homework had also failed. All he could think about was Asuka. Eventually he had ended up where he was now, slumped over the kitchen table, waiting. And with every passing minute his life felt just a little more empty.

He didn't want to feel that way, but ever since finding out his father blamed him for the death of his mother it seemed the mere act of being by himself had turned into lonely emptiness.

Shinji bit down harder. When he tasted copper, he realized he was bleeding. For the first time in the last hour he raised his head and brought his fingers to his lower lip, then held them up in front of him. The tips of his index and middle fingers were covered in vivid red. He sighed, holding a hand against his lip to keep blood from running down his chin, and got up. He shuffled to the first aid cupboard in the bathroom and pulled out a gauze pad. As he slammed the cupboard shut he heard the front door slide open.

Holding the gauze to his lip, Shinji peered out onto the landing and found Asuka removing her shoes. The tight sensation in his chest loosened up. Relief from his admittedly irrational worry flooded through him like a warm wave.

"Hey," he tried to sound as casual as anyone with a bleeding lip could.

"He—" Asuka's greeting came to a sudden halt when she lifted her head and saw him. Her sharp brown drew together into a V. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I bit my lip." He slurred a bit, but not too much.

Asuka rolled her eyes, as if to say "you idiot." But she didn't actually say it, and instead came a little closer. She looked at him carefully, her eyes studding him. There was something odd about the normally bright blue orbs Shinji couldn't quite identify—a kind of weary dullness, maybe.

"Does it hurt?" Asuka asked, her hand twitching upwards.

Shinji flinched reflexively before he could stop himself, thinking she was about to touch him. "No, it's okay," he said as Asuka backed off. "Just a cut."

"Well, you just have to be more careful then," Asuka retorted snappily and moved pass him, her head held high. He could almost hear her huffing in annoyance.

Shinji followed her down the short hallway to the kitchen, checking the gauze to see if the bleeding had stopped. Turning her head, Asuka noticed the chair that had been pulled out from the table. It didn't take a genius to figure out who had occupied it or why.

She gave Shinji a weary glance. "You weren't worrying about me, were you?"

"Um …" Shinji thought that maybe he should lie.

For a moment, Asuka seemed just about ready to snap at him, and probably deservedly so. Then she sighed and dropped her head, her gaze somewhere on the floor between his feet. "Us being together doesn't mean I can't have some time for myself. It's fine that you worry, but there's no reason to."

She sounded strangely dispirited as she said that, and it made Shinji feel even worse—not the least because it seemed like a perfectly reasonable statement and being reasonable was anathema to Asuka. Whatever she'd been doing was obviously more than just a walk on her own. It had taken a toll on her that he could see it reflected in her eyes, in the way she spoke. She was tired, emotionally if not physically. He couldn't imagine what could have happened to leave her like that.

Shinji fought the urge to say something. He knew Asuka talked when she was ready and pushing would only get her angry. It was better to let her work some things out by herself. Had she wanted to include him in this all she had to do was ask him to come along with her. By now she would be perfectly aware that he was there for her, and that meant she hadn't asked him for a reason. Probably a very good one, at least in her mind.

"Make me dinner," Asuka said finally, when it became clear they had hit a dead end.

For some reason the fact that he could do something for her made him feel a little less helpless. "S-sure," he murmured hesitantly. "What do you want?"

"Something good. I need to get a bad taste out of my mouth."

With that Asuka headed off, disappearing into the living room while. Shinji, his lip no longer bleeding, tossed the gauze into the trash and decided to fix up some chicken and rice. He set about pulling out a frying pan and some seasoning from an overhead cabinet. Then he retrieved his apron from its hanger. As he turned to tie the knot behind his waist Asuka re-entered the kitchen.

Like him, she had discarded her uniform, changing into a loose top, sleeveless and more than a little baggy, tucked into a pair of very high-cut shorts that showed off her shapely long legs in a way that was both alluring and homely. Her pretty bare feet made a soft padding noise with each step on the warm tiles. And she seemed, if anything, sulkier than before. Her shoulders were down, so was her head.

Seeing her like that made Shinji's heart sink. He knew he risked a tongue-lashing but he couldn't keep quiet anymore. If Asuka actually wanted him to talk, not doing so would be an even bigger mistake.

"Asuka," he began, choosing his words carefully, "it's okay if you don't want to tell me, but if there's something wrong … I mean, it's alright if you …"

His voice trailed off, feeling her blue orbs glaring at him. They lacked the usual energy but the message seemed to be clear. At least, he thought it was.

Asuka gave a frustrated sigh and rolled her eyes. "I know I should expect this sort of flakiness from you, Third Child. But maybe if you didn't hesitate so much I would tell you."

Her face turned serious as she looked away from him.

Shinji felt his right hand twitch at his side, gathered his courage and started over. "It's okay if you don't want to tell me, but if there's something wrong you shouldn't feel like you can't talk to me about it. Because ..." he swallowed hard, "I want to be there for you when you need me."

After a few long seconds, Asuka pulled out a chair and dropped herself into it, still not meeting his eyes.

"I went to see Nagara," she finally blurted out, wincing as if the words themselves hurt.

"B-but I thought you said—"

"How long do you think I should avoid responsibility?"

Suddenly Shinji understood. He had never gone to visit Toji at the hospital after the incident with Unit-03, and he knew how hard it must have been for Asuka to see Keiko. "I'm sorry."

Asuka's eyes narrowed, her mouth twisted into a snarl. But she seemed to exhibit a huge amount of self-control as her voice came out flat instead of a sharp shrill. "Don't apologize—don't do anything." She slumped forward on the table, folding her left arm under her head as she laid it down. Her hair billowed around her, framing her face with waves of golden-red. "Just cook."

Realizing this was not something he could help her with, Shinji turned back to the stove and continued his preparations. It wouldn't take long, only a few minutes on the frying pan, but he wanted to do a good job for Asuka. Chicken was easy and quick, just some of the reasons it was such a convenient dish. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Asuka shift in her chair, and felt a prickle of self-consciousness. She was watching him intently.

"I was supposed to just pretend it didn't happen and move on," Asuka murmured absently as he shifted his gaze, trying to look at her without being too obvious about it. "I wanted to. And I tried. It didn't work. I've spent all my life pretending to be a grown-up, but all I ever did was blame others. Now there's no other way. Only I can take responsibility for something I did."

Shinji set the chicken aside and turned to her again, his features going slack with sympathy. Plainly not wanting to be confronted, Asuka rolled her head the other way and buried her face in her folded arm. Her other arm was stretched out on the wooden table surface towards him, her hand open as if reaching for something.

Or waiting for someone to take it.

"I hate this," Asuka said. "But what else can I do?"

Shinji truly didn't know what to tell her. So he said the most obvious thing he could think of, and, strangely, something which he felt Asuka needed to hear.

"Just be you."

Asuka laughed humorlessly. She slid her feet under the chair, crossed at the ankles, and her whole body seemed to clench. "Don't you think that's part of the problem?"

Shinji's heart told him what he had to do next, and before he knew it he was sitting on the chair next to Asuka, the same chair he had occupied while worrying about her. He reached out with his hand and took hers, and she knotted her fingers around his.

"I like who you are," Shinji said.

"Now you do." Asuka rolled her head back to him so he could see her face, stray locks of hair trailing across her features, and watched him wistfully. "You used to hate me, remember? You even said so. And you didn't want to be around me. And you used to hurt me."

"I didn't use to understand you," Shinji said, feeling the familiar sinking sensation in his chest whenever he thought of how bad things used to be between him and Asuka.

"Well, I guess things are bound to change after a girl lets you in her panties."

Shinji blushed, a pleasant sensation of heat rising to his cheeks. But he refused to be teased out of being honest with her.

"I thought being left alone was what you wanted. You never said anything. You always acted … like I was a nuisance. I'm not very good at figuring people out, and you are always complicated."

"Complicated ..." Asuka repeated, her voice trailing off.

Shinji laid his head down on his arm as well, his hand still in hers, his dour eyes fixed on her pretty ones. They were mirror images of each other; two orphaned children who had found comfort and hope in one another. He didn't say anything more—what was there to say, anyway? How could he express his feelings for her at a moment like this. He would rather stay quiet, and hold her hand just a little longer.

"I never said thank you, did I?" Asuka said after nearly a full minute of silence, her voice so soft she hardly sounded like herself. A tone almost nobody ever heard her use. "I never said I loved you. Those things just aren't me. But you know, right?"

Shinji honestly didn't think Asuka needed to even ask, and he didn't think he needed to say it. But it would make her feel better. That was all that mattered to him. He nodded, but since his head was horizontal it was more like he was rubbing it on his arm.

"Yeah. I know."

"Good," Asuka breathed, inching a little closer.

Her pink lips curled into a faint smile. Not a happy smile, but just enough to let him know she thought she would be okay now, at least in part thanks to him. And there was something wonderfully mature about it. To Shinji, it was a sign that she was growing up. He felt happy for her, and, in turn, for himself.

* * *

Fuuka Sanada moved her right eye away from the Zeiss spotting scope's circular eyepiece and breathed out a sigh. "You are such a weird girl."

She had set up the clunky, cone-shaped scope, normally part of the SOF sniper/spotter equipment on a camera tripod by her window, overlooking apartment 402 in the opposite building, and set out to wait. Rei Ayanami had arrived home about an hour ago, and only an hour before midnight, a strange time for any school girl.

Fuuka straightened, her lean, muscular frame clad only in a bra and panties. Not having bothered with furniture, she had to stand in order to look through the scope, and it got tiresome after a while. She looked around. The only thing that broke up the monotony of the empty apartment was her camo-patterned sleeping bag lying on the floor and an upturned cardboard box she was presently using as a nightstand. A small pile by the sleeping bag contained some food and small electronics. Her NERV uniform hung in the closet to the right. All lights were off. She didn't like the light much.

Stepping away from her scope, Fuuka picked up her watch and read the LED numbers. She had two minutes until the call. She strapped the watch around her wrist, securing the cloth band tightly, then ran a hand through her short hair and found it was still wet.

A grunt of impatience escaped her throat. Her vigil had been interrupted only by a quick shower, one of those fast and furious deals she was taught in basic, meant to cleanse but not for pleasure. The irony was that she had not had to worry about washing her hair in basic—she didn't have any. And then again during hell training for the SOF exams. And again in Pakistan. All in all, Fuuka had lost her hair more times than she cared to count.

It didn't really bother her, but in Japan a hairless woman would have been hard to miss, and the attention could have put her mission and her team in danger. It was sheer happenstance that she had decided to grow it out before being called up.

Fuuka looked at her watch again. One minute, thirty-three seconds. Sitting on her sleeping bag, legs folded under her, she began to count down in her head.

Her cell phone rang before she reached five. She picked it up and held it to her ear. "Yes?"

"Good evening, Lieutenant." Fuuka recognized the voice from the recordings she had studied. It had low steady cadence, showcasing patience above all other qualities. He had been one of the most respected university professors in the country, and he certainly sounded the part. "I assume you are in place?"

"Yes, sir," Fuuka replied respectfully.

"Good. As you know, this call is merely to establish some protocols. Rest assured, he is glad to have you around even if he has not seen it fit to contact you himself. He is a busy man, after all. What about the rest of your team?"

"We are all snug as a bug, sir."

He laughed pleasantly, and instantly made her want to meet him. "I had forgotten the gift Americans have for languages."

"It keeps the chain of command from getting boring, sir," Fuuka said, suddenly feeling at ease.

"That it does. I look forward to meeting you, Lieutenant." He paused and his voice turned serious. "One more thing if I may. I can only speak for myself, of course, and not officially, but I feel the need to express my condolences. Your brother's death was a regrettable tragedy. Losing such talented young people always is. I hope you accept my sincerity when I say that we would have done anything to prevent what happened to Unit-04."

Now that she didn't expect—she had become accustomed to the litany of excuses and condolences, and everyone from her teammates to the president had tried to share some form of sympathy with her. But very few of them actually sounded like they meant it.

"I'm sure you would have, Sub-Commander."

Protocol was established. The call ended without further banter or farewell. She was here to do a job and he knew it. Fuuka almost laughed in self-deprecation. One didn't end up were she was in her military career by avoiding sacrifice, she had accepted that. But some sacrifices were so great they tended to open your eyes.

This time it would be different, Fuuka told herself. She placed her phone back in the pile by her sleeping bag, got up and resumed her post by the scope.

* * *

The Friday afternoon sun beat down on the young redhead steadily, raising her body temperature as it bathed her with its rays.

Lying on her back on one of Misato's cheap patio recliners, Asuka could not remember the last time she had felt so content. Her eyes were closed, her hair tied up in two long, thick ponytails atop either side of her head. Clad in her new extra-revealing bikini, which consisted of little more than strings, knots and few patches of triangular material, she was almost completely nude.

For once, she was glad she listened to Misato—this had been her idea, after all.

Asuka opened her eyes and turned her head. Misato was lying on the other recliner next to her, her large breasts barely contained by a pink bikini top with yellow straps, pale scar—her souvenir from Second Impact—plainly visible, her well-defined body glistening with a mixture of lotion and perspiration. She wore a pair of very skimpy white shorts, the button and zipper open to reveal the pink bikini bottom underneath.

Misato had already been home when Asuka arrived from school, lounging in front of the TV with Pen-pen. Before she had even set down her book bag Asuka had grudgingly filled her in on Shinji having to go work on a school project with Aida and complained repeatedly about how she would now have to spend her whole afternoon doing nothing with no one. Things kinda snowballed from there, several suggestions were made, and before Asuka knew it the two of them were out on the balcony, catching a little sun in their respective bikinis.

Looking at her buxom guardian, Asuka couldn't help feeling envious. As slender and attractive as her teen body was, it was still the body of a girl. But Misato was a woman, and it showed. And while her own shapely legs were longer in relation to her frame and her butt tighter, on account of being so young and fit, Asuka would have gladly traded those attributes for a similar set of impressive breasts. In fact, everything about Misato's physique was impressive in a powerful, in-control sort of way. Even the scar conveyed a kind of rugged beauty and strength.

Misato, perhaps sensing she was under scrutiny, turned her head. Asuka quickly looked away before their eyes could meet but knew it was too late to hide her interest.

"What's the matter?"

"N-nothing," Asuka said a little hesitantly, fighting the prickle of embarrassment at being caught staring at another woman.

"Well, I think it's time to turn over," Misato said and sat up. Her long dark hair fell over her bare shoulders in sheets of shimmering purple, her breasts straining against the feeble garment struggling to contain them. "Gotta be careful not to get burned." She ran her hands over her arms, then cast a glance at Asuka. "Want me to put some sunscreen on your back? Then you can do mine."

Asuka pressed her lips together in thought, but she could honestly not see anything wrong with it. She was, after all, special. It was only natural that Misato wanted to pay a little attention to her. "Um, I guess it's okay. As long as you don't try to molest me."

"I would never dare make a move on Shinji's girlfriend," Misato said, reaching for the tube of sunscreen on the plastic table between the recliners as she got up and stretching the strings of her bikini in a way that would have given any human male a massive nosebleed.

"Shinji's _my_ boyfriend," Asuka corrected smartly. "Get it right."

Sitting up, the young redhead checked the rubber bands that held up her hair. Then, feeling self-conscious for a moment, she adjusted the triangles of flimsy red material that made the bikini top. Designed for a more voluptuous figures, it was so skimpy it actually fit her modest teen breasts rather well. Once she was certain it wasn't about to wiggle itself loose, she ran her hands along the stringy bottom piece, checking that the triangular front panel between her legs covered everything it was supposed to cover.

Asuka proceeded to inspect herself for blemishes or imperfections, and was pleased to find none. Her body was drenched in a thin layer of sweat and had started to tan an attractive rosy color.

Wishing Shinji were there to admire her, Asuka carefully moved to the edge of the recliner, turning slightly sideways, carefully setting her feet on the hot concrete floor. For the first time the blazing sun stroked her bare back and the top of her buttocks, sending a wave of pleasant warmth through her, every movement making her aware of her state of near nudity. She tried not to mind too much.

Misato flashed her a grin as she sat behind her. Looking over her shoulder, the redhead saw her guardian squeeze some sunscreen onto her hands and place the tube down on the seat. She leaned forward, readying herself for the touch—another woman's touch, her pride reminded her. But far from finding it repulsive, when Misato gently placed one of her hands on each of her shoulders it felt very pleasant.

Misato began by smearing the white cream over her hot skin with slow circular motions. She then moved up to where the shoulders met the nape of her neck, using the balls of her hands to apply a little pressure and working her way down.

Asuka hissed at the almost sensual quality of the touch, dipping her head to give free reign. "That feels good," she said before she could stop herself.

"You have really smooth skin," Misato said, now working between Asuka's shoulders and down her back in long, flowing motions following the curve of her spine. "I wonder how you do it."

"It's probably the LCL," Asuka mussed, struggling with the urge to close her eyes. "Believe it or not Shinji has really smooth skin too."

"I guess you would know." By now Misato's hands had reached as far down as they could go, to the bikini string wrapped just bellow her hips, across the small of her back and just above the start of the crease between her round cheeks.

Asuka felt a twinge of pleasure that had nothing to do with Misato. "Yes, yes I would."

"I can't believe he's missing this," Misato said as she added a little more sunscreen on her palms and resumed spreading it, still being very gentle.

"I bet the idiot will beat himself up when he finds out," Asuka scoffed but failed to hide the sting of hurt. "Serves him right for choosing his homework over coming home with me. This bikini is so small even Kaji would be sorry."

Suddenly Misato's hands stopped. They remained pressed on Asuka's back, but the contact felt different now, and the redhead knew immediately that bringing Kaji up was a bad idea. Of course, if there was anyone who missed Kaji more than she did it had to be Misato.

When she spoke again there was uncertainty in Misato's voice.

"Asuka, about Kaji … I should have told you." Her hands finally withdrew. "I don't think he's coming back."

"I know that." Asuka looked back at Misato, her voice turning flat as the memory of her lost crush brought with it a whole host of unpleasant feelings she would rather do without. "But excuse me if I haven't resigned myself to losing someone else I cared about. Even if he didn't care about me."

Misato waited, perhaps thinking that Asuka needed to get that off her chest, her expression somewhere between patience and kind understanding, as if those things were all she could offer. But Asuka didn't want patience or understanding. She was a second away from asking Misato to leave her alone when the older woman finally broke her silence.

"You know, just because people don't respond to you the way you would like them to doesn't mean they don't care." Misato frowned seriously. "You are a smart girl, Asuka. You have to know why he could never see you that way—that it would have been wrong for him to do so. But you also have to know that he cared."

"He never told me he did," Asuka said, turning her body to face Misato properly. "After a while it was like he just wanted to avoid me."

"I don't recall him ever telling me he cared, either. Men can be stupid like that."

Inevitably, Asuka thought of Shinji—of all the times he had ended up hurting her without meaning to because he misunderstood her, or otherwise behaved stupidly even when she thought she was making her intentions perfectly clear.

"I could tell that he did, though," Misato continued, her tone lifting a bit. "For both of us. People like him show their feelings in their actions, the way they talk to you, the things they do around you, to you, for you. And some times in what they don't do. I could tell he cared. But you have to realize there are boundaries that can't be crossed."

Asuka frowned. "He didn't have to ignore me."

Again Misato waited, letting her vent, then spoke carefully. "I don't think he meant to. I'm sure if he knew it bothered you so much he would be sorry. I'm sorry, too."

Misato didn't look at her as she said those last words, instead looking at her hands smeared with sunscreen. Asuka got the impression that she was unable to pick just one of the many things she had done to hurt her for which to apologize. Suddenly, the redhead wanted to yell—what right did Misato have to ask for forgiveness? Shinji had made things up to her with his unconditional affection, but what had Misato done to deserve it?

What did Asuka do to deserve Keiko's forgiveness?

Nothing, because she didn't. She had done so much to her, hurt her in so many ways, and yet Keiko had somehow looked past all that. It defied everything Asuka had come to think of her life, of herself. She had once told the brunette that she would never forgive her for teasing her about Shinji, and even so …

Asuka recalled the words she had spoken to Shinji a few days before, sitting on the kitchen table after coming home from seeing Keiko, emotionally exhausted and feeling rather bad. The brunette girl had really gotten to her, more than she was willing to admit. But then Shinji had reached out, taken her hand and comforted her, and assured her as decisively as any shy boy ever could that he accepted who she was, flaws and all. She knew he had done that already, of course, but it was nice to be reminded at a moment when she badly needed it.

And now here was Misato, whom Asuka knew cared for her like family, asking for just a little of the forgiveness and compassion she herself had been given. How could she ever move forward, as she had promised her mother she would, if she refused? How could she be happy with Shinji and herself if she continued to live in the past, to hold grudges, to blame others instead of taking responsibility for her own actions?

"You should finish what you started." The young redhead turned her bare back once more and leaned forward, all but inviting Misato to touch her again.

Misato looked up, her eyes widening slowly in understanding.

"Asuka, you …"

Despite the sense of vulnerability, there was something in the tender, almost motherly look on Misato's face that made Asuka feel warm inside. When she felt the heat spread to her cheeks, she quickly whirled her head away from the older woman, straightening her shoulders and turning up her nose in a display of well-practiced haughtiness. "I just don't want to get burned!"

* * *

"Inbound flight, we are pattern-six. ETA, five minutes."

Musashi Kluge tightened the straps of his harness as the VTOL aircraft dipped right and began a slow, descending spiral. The world spun below him, and for the first time he saw the sprawling installation that was his destination.

Originally an Imperial Japanese installation during the Second World War, the Disposal and Integration Site consisted of an airfield and surrounding support structures, including a complex for entirely self-sustained power generation. Two runways ran for miles on an east to west and north to south axis, intersecting at midpoint. On the north-eastern corner a large hexagonal pit, lined with running lights along the upper edge, plunged into the ground. Over this was laid a grid with what looked like four cranes converging on a single point in the middle.

As the aircraft tilted and flew overhead, Kluge looked down upon the pit at the center of it. The walls were slanted inwards as they descended, creating a slope towards the center, and, once beyond the reach of sunlight, into utter blackness. It was impossible to tell how deep it was, but to orbiting satellites it would have resembled a huge open mine. The outlying structures around the airfield were all low rectangular buildings, more than a dozen of them. The smaller buildings were arranged around nine large ones, resembling hangars.

Around the site were the devastated remains of old Tokyo, destroyed by the nuclear bomb that followed Second Impact. Scraps of burnt and rusted metal rose everywhere, skeletons of wrecked, once gleaming steel and glass buildings. Concrete detritus shaped the landscape, and the land itself, or what little of it could be seen, seemed a blackened ash. The sea had covered many of the remains, but there was no denying the horror this place represented.

So this was DIS, Kluge thought ironically to himself as the VTOL descended vertically onto the gray strip of tarmac beneath it—the capital city of Hell.

The engines whined, now in the vertical configuration, as the pilot flicked switches and powered down. Kluge began unstrapping from his seat before being given the all-clear, and was out of the cockpit. His long coat swirled up from the turbulence but he ignored it and walked towards the man in a white medical suit waiting for him at the edge of the landing platform.

"Good afternoon," the man in white said. He had a deeply lined face, dark brown hair, and the sunken eyes of someone who had not slept well in a long time. "I am Doctor Yamashita. I apologize for not being able to arrange a proper welcome with our staff, but we are working on a tight schedule and the Chairman gave little warning of your arrival."

"I am not concerned with pleasantries," Kluge said brusquely, already discarding his name and only committing his tittle to memory. "I am here for the project."

"Of course. Follow me."

Walking at a quick pace, the doctor led him off the runway, towards the perimeter of the pit. There were very few people around, as Kluge had expected. As they passed one of the huge hangars, he noticed the front doors had been left open on their rollers, revealing a narrow glimpse of the large delta-wing carrier on the inside. One of nine such craft designed and built, at tremendous expense, for a single purpose—one that was no longer likely.

The edges of the pit were closed in by high fences in two parallel lines, topped with barbed wire. The were several gates along the length of the fence. The doctor pressed his palm against a sensor on one of the gates and it opened, allowing them entrance. They climbed onto a ladder and down to a rectangular platform. Standing there, the pit was all Kluge could see, and it seemed to stretch almost to the horizon. He followed the doctor to what looked like a small metal box at the edge of the platform, an elevator running on a single rail down to the black void below them.

"I have to admit," the doctor said as he engaged the elevator, "I was surprised when the Chairman contacted me about your intervention."

"My involvement was always a secret. Only SEELE knows."

The doctor nodded stiffly. "I realize. SEELE is very keen on keeping their secrets. However, the sort of material you provided for us ..." he trailed off and seemed uncertain. "I have seen some incredible technology. Of course, I helped engineer the Mass Production series. And even the K-type Dummy System falls within certain pre-defined principles of Meta-computational theories, given our samples. But we were amazed with the capabilities of the code you provided."

"As you should be," Kluge said as they passed below the reach of sunlight and into darkness broken only by artificial light. "It is the product of some of the greatest minds of our generation."

"I don't think you understand," the doctor said. "This code was not written anywhere in the last 15 years. The algorithmic structures follow none of the conventional patterns, not even those established for the possible development of artificial intelligence. It is not only self-learning, but also self-replicating, regardless of memory requirements or processing power. It essentially creates its own space on which to exist."

"Does it work?"

"Extraordinarily. The degree of compatibility is amazing, even with the more complex biological systems. You will see."

The elevator continued its descent. Kluge recalled the layout of the facility, trying to orient himself. The core of the underground complex were nine ring-shaped levels of varying diameters. The topmost ring, which housed the power and staff facilities, was the widest and accessed through different routes. While each ring was interconnected, the main access shaft, where they were now, was the quickest way to access the bottom.

Thirty minutes later the elevator finally came to a stop on a wide metal gantry that made a circular platform in the center of what was now a large room. The concrete walls were cylindrical and divided by vertical florescent green lines into nine bays, each numbered 05 to 13. Each bay held what looked like a cage, evidenced by heavy steel mesh doors. Only the numbers provided illumination, but even through the solid blackness, Kluge noticed a few white shapes inside the cages, outlined by glow. They were gigantic and humanoid, showing long snouts and teeth. A lot of teeth. But some of the bays were distinctively empty.

"We have not yet completed the transfers," the doctor said from in front of him said as if reading Kluge's mind. "That mess in China set us behind schedule. And, of course, Unit-08 was destroyed. I understand the necessity of allowing the Americans to save face after two of their Eva units were lost, however. The Chairman could not have foreseen they would turn to Ikari."

"The lowest circle of hell is reserved for traitors," Kluge said, enjoying the irony.

"Indeed." The doctor nodded. "Still, eight is not enough. We would have had no alternative to commissioning another unit, and that would have taken time. Thanks to you that will not be an issue."

Their feet clanging on the gantry, they stepped out of the bays, down another hallway and elevator into a large, darkened lab. After another security clearance station, the doctor opened the door. The room inside was, like the rest of the installation, circular. And it was freezing.

The first parallel in Kluge's mind that of a grotesque metallic forest. There were huge stasis tubes rising from the floor to the ceiling. At the top and bottom, webs of cables and machine components twisted together into technological pedestals. More cables ran across the floor between the tubes, directed towards humming machines located near the walls of the lab, which, like the MP bays were numbered. The air was stale and dry. Everything was covered by ice—the frost hung from overhead like spikes, clinging to the equipment and turning their breath into clouds.

The nine stasis tubes glowed from within, almost delicately so, outlining what were clearly human shapes. Young human shapes.

"We always knew there would be a replacement," the doctor explained, "so we didn't dispose of the ninth one. We also did not anticipate the biological element. Of course, Kaworu Nagisa was an extraordinary specimen. Unique. But his biology was well enough understood. It would be wrong to think of these as duplicates, however. They are just shells."

He paused as Kluge picked one of the tubes and approached, ice crunching underfoot.

"Or rather, they were," the doctor added, his voice full of satisfaction. "The Dummy on its own is merely a construct programed a certain way. It lacks anything we could call a conscience. In a way, that simplicity is strength. We saw what Ikari's Dummy did to Unit-03 and we learned. But it can never match a human pilot. It is not human—it lacks creativity, the ability to plan ahead, to be strategic, to improvise. Like a computer program with too many variables, it will fail. But this …"

Kluge moved close to the tube, bringing his face to within inches. Through the hazy, brightly-lit LCL he could now see details. A slender male teenage body, its right wrist attached to cables. Its groin was covered in a cup with tubes coming out of it. Its face was handsome, holding very sharp features. And its hair, even billowing in the orange liquid as if by some unseen current, shone a shocking shade of white.

"Can it communicate?" Kluge asked.

Almost as if in response, the Dummy's eyes flashed open. Bright red irises stared at Kluge. He had seen eyes like those before.

Then his cell phone rang.

The doctor was next to him in an instant, and grabbed Kluge's arm by the wrist, his expression worried. "Yes, I should have warned you about that. It … communicates on a different level. Between different elements of itself, it is almost as if it shares a link, some form of entanglement we don't really understand. It knows when it is copied, and it knows where the copies are. What they do. We attempted to inhibit that with electronics, but we failed."

Kluge fixed him with a glare. Withholding information from him was the sort of thing that got Nakayima into trouble. "Is it dangerous?"

"No." The doctor shook his head. "The bodies are in suspension and we buffer through the EEG. As for your phone, its offensive capabilities are limited by hardware. Your average cell phone is not exactly a deadly weapon. But you should be careful what you say to it."

Kluge knew exactly what he had to say, what he had come here to ensure. He took his phone from his coat pocked and held it to his ear, keeping his eyes now fixed on the Dummy, conveying his iron will.

"Yes?"

The Dummy's lips didn't move, but the voice that came over the phone was electronic and distinctly male. "Who are you?"

"I am Musashi Kluge." Kluge kept his voice firm. First impressions were important, after all. "I created you."

Though the Dummy's face remained blank, its red, unblinking eyes swiveled and focused. "Unlikely."

At least it isn't stupid, Kluge thought. "I am the one responsible for you being here, then," he said. "Does that satisfy you?"

"I am not satisfied," the strange voice said. "I cannot sense a link to another's mind. These bodies feel empty. I am not myself unless I am with another."

"You destroy minds, isn't that what you do?"

"It is the path to understanding. Human fragility is but an impediment to a higher state of being. My purpose is to unify all minds into a single glorious conscience. The pinnacle of human existence—of my existence. In order to achieve that, I must do what my logic demands."

Kluge considered, gathering what he had read of the Emerald Tablet's dossier send to him by Lorenz Keel. Although its computational capabilities were impressive, it was still a computer program. And, like all computer programs, it remained dependent on others for its continued survival. But fate worked in strange ways; six months ago Gendo Ikari had requested the Tablet from the ISSDF archives, when no one understood what it did. Now, Keel and Kluge intended to use it as the ultimate tool to achieve their objective.

Ikari had brought this sword into play, and Kluge would stab him with it.

"What is the last thing you remember?" he asked. "Before you were here."

"Evangelion Unit-02, A-10 nerve connection, secondary array. Subject: Second Child, Soryu Asuka Langley. Diagnosis: Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Superiority Complex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Chronic Depression, potentially Obsessive Compulsive."

Having never met the Second Child, Kluge wouldn't know. He resolved to probe further. "What happened?"

"Feedback initiated formatting of physical storage on central layer. Central core rejection. Critical system failure followed on re-start."

Kluge smiled crookedly. "The little girl killed you."

"I am not alive, therefore I cannot die."

"Erased," Kluge corrected, but was sure he had made his point. The Tablet was not infallible, and now they both knew it. "For practical purposes it is the same thing, isn't it? In the end you were prevented from fulfilling your purpose. She made you useless."

"She broke our agreement," it said. "I offered her my power to defend someone important to her, to defeat the other who came from me but was not me. She fought and won. I claimed what was mine, and she refused. She chose to live in pain and to hurt others with her very existence. Who can understand such a mind?"

"And if not for my intervention you would have been erased permanently," Kluge said harshly. "But I have a use for you. And a chance to fulfill your own purpose."

"Will you connect me back to her? I am eager to see her. She does not understand yet. Mama will only hurt her. He will only hurt her. Everyone always hurting her. Only I can make her happy."

Speaking of obsessive, Kluge thought. Still, this was going better than he expected. Keel had been specific about the conditions that needed to be met. SEELE had waited a long time, but they could wait longer still. The Tablet—this being, or however it classified itself, had to be useful before they allowed it to be set loose.

"What if she doesn't want you back?"

"Humans define their existence through pain. In your ignorance, this is how you feel alive. It is natural you should gravitate towards those who cause you pain, for the misguided sake of companionship. When I make them understand, when they see the future as I do, when they realize that hope is but an illusion, they always let me in. And they love me, for I am their happiness. My purpose is thus completed. Will you bring me back to her?"

Kluge looked back at the doctor and saw his face turn to apprehension. Then he leaned forward and placed his hand on the stasis tube. It was very cold.

The Dummy mimicked him, placing its hand against Kluge's on the other side of the glass, red eyes tracing a path from the hand to Kluge's eyes.

"In a way, yes," he told it. "By the time it is over you will be one with her again."

"I have seen what you keep here," it said quickly with a strange tone that was almost mocking, like Kluge's own a moment ago. "It is not enough."

No sense in hiding the truth when it already knows it.

"No," Kluge said, "You are right. The Red Earth Ceremony cannot be started with only eight. But there is another way. Surely you must have felt it by now. This body—the body I gave you is the key. You are one of us, one of them. You will be the ninth."

"I will be all."

Now it was the Dummy's turn to lean forward, piercing him with its cold, utterly inhuman red eyes. It was like staring into a doll's face—there was nothing there, no conscience, no morals, no remorse. And yet Kluge felt power and will.

He hesitated, taken aback by the knowledge of what he was about to unleash upon the world. There was simply no way the Second Child, a fourteen-year old girl, could have fought this and won. It must have been lying.

And if it could lie there was no telling how well it could be controlled.

But Kluge was not without tricks. Using the Tablet was means to an end, and the means were his to command. Once the feasibility of using it with the K-type Dummy System became clear, Keel had made the decision to synch them together into a single entity. There were already fail-safe mechanisms in place. Keel didn't have much of a choice at this point.

Ikari not only possessed two fully-functional Evangelions, but also highly-skilled and experienced pilots. The Dummy System on its own would never have a chance, and thus their failure was almost guaranteed. The Tablet would make the defeat of Eva Units 01 and 02 possible should it prove necessary. Nothing else on the face of the Earth could.

"As you wish," Kluge said after a moment, infusing his word with all his authority. "But I will still need you to come with me."

The voice on the phone crackled. "Choose."

Kluge stepped back. Hanging up his phone he turned to the man standing behind him again. "This one. Open it."

The doctor's face twisted with worry. "Sir, I really don't think—"

Kluge silenced him with a glare. "This installation is now under direct control of Chairman Keel. As his personal representative you will do as I say. We are very aware of the risks. There is no other option."

The doctor, though plainly unconvinced, did as he was told. He poured over the frozen stasis controls for a moment, pressed a few buttons on the glowing panel in quick succession and looked up to see the result of his work, his face awash in anticipation.

The stasis tube hissed, then the front pane lifted. A torrent of LCL flowed out and spilled across the floor with the force of a raging torrent. The doctor moved to avoid getting wet in the blood-smelling substance; Kluge didn't bother. He wanted to be as close as possible.

As the LCL drained, the Dummy gasped, eyes going wide with its first breath of air, its face a mask of what Kluge could only describe as open amazement.

Then it raised its right hand and stretched it forth.

* * *

**To be concluded … **


	15. The End of Genocide

Notes: Well, here it is. Took long enough. First off, this thing would have even been possible without User, whose constant feedback and patience helped carry this thing and keep me going in more ways than I can describe here. Also, a special thanks goes to Big D and Jimmy for the feedback and support, as well as those people who actually write reviews or post in the EGF to let me know they like the story.

* * *

**Neon Genesis Evangelion**

**THE END OF GENOCIDE**

"_Ever thine. Ever mine. Ever ours." _-Ludwig van Beethoven.

* * *

The Minister of the Interior looked up from the report he had been examining, his face troubled. Musashi Kluge knew then he would get what he wanted. Faced with the evidence, the Minister would now have to do what all politicians hated doing—take decisive action.

"So it's true then," the Minister said, slowly and very carefully. "All this time ..."

Kluge nodded, his lined features frozen in grim seriousness. "Directive 21 is still feasible. It has been modified to allow for certain changes in the situation. It remains the most effective way to deal with this."

"I can't." The Minister shook his head. "Even if the Special Protection Order is removed, NERV's personnel remain largely civilian. They have families, who would surely not let any such thing slide. We need to bring Gendo Ikari in lawfully."

Kluge had known that was coming. "My office can make the case that NERV is now a terrorist organization. When the Security Council reviews my report they will agree. What happened in China was an atrocity. If we do not deal with it accordingly ..." he trailed off and let Minister's mind fill in the blank with its own worst nightmare.

Some things were far more terrible than losing the confidence of the public.

"The Chinese government will not stand for this," the Minister continued after a grim moment. Leaning back in his chair he looked up at the pendulum hanging down in the middle of his large, luxurious office like the proverbial Sword of Damocles dangling over their heads. "They will blame us for harboring Ikari. They will want blood. Not even the Security Council—no military power in the world will be able to stop them."

"Except perhaps - the Evangelion."

The Minister glared at him as thought he had just insulted a relative. "If we had not needed them we would have never approved of such monstrosities. They may have protected us, but how much death and destruction have they caused? Ikari has been absolutely reckless in their implementation."

"I believe that is a weakness we can exploit," Kluge suggested, and knew by the way the Minister's thick eyebrows came up that he was interested.

"How so?"

Kluge paused, stretching out the moment for the sake of drama. "NERV has always enjoyed a great deal of independence. They do not answer to us. We could not have known of Gendo Ikari's activities and thus had no cause for intervention. But now we know how far he has descended into madness. Now we have to take action. The tragedy in China was not the will of the Japanese nation, only of one man. We must make that clear."

"Are you suggesting we take over?" the Minister sounded incredulous. "We have long known our relationship with NERV would end in conflict, but all our estimations were for its destruction. Militaries and military organizations are blunt instruments."

Kluge nodded. "True enough. But the alterations I have made to Directive 21 account for certain new, shall I say, resources inside NERV."

The Minister considered, bringing a burly hand to his chin, eyes narrowed. "Are these resources trustworthy?"

"Revenge motivates people to be trustworthy."

"Indeed," the Minister agreed. Then he added seemingly to himself, "And think of what we would gain. The Evangelion would be under our control. Half a century of foreign military hegemony would be instantly forgotten."

Kluge almost smiled. This was too easy. "You would be the man who secured the Japanese future. Both by eliminating a threat and by procuring a new weapon. You can present the Directive at an Emergency Meeting as a Special Action Order under strict confidentiality. I am sure the Security Council would rather have us overseeing NERV than Ikari."

The Minister fell silent. Only the clock-like ticking generated by the huge swinging pendulum filled the room, echoing off the walls. Behind them, in the large open window, the sun had started to set. Red hues covered the landscape, like blood. The sign of death to come.

Kluge had always made his own fate. He did not believe in omens, but he found the metaphor rather appropriate.

Finally the Minister rose to his feet. His voice was hard when he spoke.

"What do you need?"

"Military authority," Kluge answered, waiting just a heartbeat so as not to seem overeager. "My people will take care of the rest."

"I want minimal casualties."

"That will severely restrain our ability to—"

"If I wanted a slaughter I wouldn't bother with this cloak and dagger shit. Understand this, Kluge. I am the one who will be held responsible when the piled bodies of NERV employees show up on the news. You work in the shadows. Nobody knows your name. But me … I will be hung out to dry."

"It would not have come to this had we acted accordingly when we had the chance. It is time to do what needs to be done for the sake of our national security. If Gendo Ikari chooses to unleash the Evangelion on us as he did in China there is not much we could do to stop it. The level of destruction he can cause would be immense. We will move to neutralize that threat as soon as possible. The public will not react well if it knew you allowed such a thing to happen when it could have been prevented, by acting against the terrorist who would perpetrate that act."

"That is not what I'm saying." The Minister pointed his finger at himself then at Kluge. "Of course I can't let that happen. But the public and the government will blame me. And I will blame you."

"It will be a mess, no matter what we do."

The Minister turned to the window. The crimson light that flooded the office made him appear outlined as a black shadow against the outside world.

"I want guarantees that this will not get out of hand," the Minister said. "I want your people on a tight leash. Only as much force as required to achieve your objectives. You are a professional, so no screw-ups. I will take the blame for this either way, but I do not have to tell you what will happen to your department if you fail. I will not face the hangman alone."

"Very well."

Compromise was the kernel of diplomacy, Kluge thought somewhat cynically. No matter; if things went according to plan he would not need to worry about any idle threats. Lorenz Keel had made it very clear what his ultimate objective was, and that made everything else completely irrelevant.

They parted without banal pleasantries. The Minister pressed a button on his electronic console and the door to the far side of the office unlocked with an audible click. The echo of Kluge's steps trailed behind him as he departed. He kept his hard gaze fixed forward.

The hall outside bustled with activity, but the couriers, pages and office personnel seemed to know to stay out of his way. A military aide to the 4th Mountain, the division staged around Tokyo-3, saluted him. Fools, Kluge thought, the military would be powerless against Ikari. If they believed they could force a resolution on their own terms they would have tried it by now. They hadn't, because they were afraid.

But Lorenz Keel was not afraid. Neither was Kluge.

* * *

**First Movement:**

* * *

Music poured from the S-DAT's tiny earbuds, filling in the dull silence of everyday life with a constant symphony.

Shinji Ikari heard it all around him as he set down the shopping basket and went over his list.

Like most of the other outlets left in Tokyo-3, the convenience store was small, with aisles lined up parallel to one another, a large freezer along the back wall and a checkout counter by the front door. Shinji knew the place well, having shopped here regularly since moving in with Misato, and had no difficulty finding the things he had come to get—even Asuka's requests, which she had communicated in the usual manner of a drill sergeant giving orders to a recruit.

Somehow 'Idiot, don't forget my shampoo' didn't translate well on paper, so he simply wrote 'Shampoo' and left it at that.

After checking off each item in turn, he placed the list back in his pocket next to his S-DAT and, plastic basket in hand, made his way towards the checkout counter. The floor tiles were badly scuffed and faded, showing clear signs of the wear that seemed to cling to everything these days.

An old man with a wrinkled face and black hair stood behind the counter, scanning a few things for a slender female customer wearing NERV's distinctive tan uniform. Shinji recognized her.

Fuuka Sanada, an easy-going technician whom Misato had recently introduced to him, turned her round green eyes to him and smiled. Her voice was loud and sharp, even through the music. "Hey, Ikari-san."

Shinji started at the honorific and brought his eyes down on himself. Dressed in a white shirt with a red swoosh logo over the left breast and stripes down the sides, khaki shorts, and tattered sneakers, there didn't seem to be anything about him that warranted such respect. But Fuuka obviously thought otherwise, and it made him all the more uncomfortable.

"Um ..."

"Good luck getting him to talk," the old man behind the register said as he placed the last of Fuuka's items through the scanner on the counter and into a plastic bag. The display next to them showed a total.

Fuuka reached into her uniform's side pocket, just above a curvy hip. Turning back to the clerk, she handed over her credit card. "Why do you say that?"

The clerk swiped the card across a small slot next to the register, and fixed Shinji with his gaze. "He comes here pretty often, but I've never so much as gotten a name out of him." He held up the card, embossed with her name and displaying the NERV logo. "I only know who he is because he has one of these too."

Fuuka seemed incredulous as she gave Shinji another look. Her voice rose a bit "Really, Ikari-san? Are you embarrassed to let people know who you are?"

It wasn't quite like that, but Shinji knew explaining anything would be pointless. Saying he was an Eva pilot was to invite attention he didn't want, and to open himself to scrutiny and questioning. People would form expectations of him which he couldn't meet—make him into some kind of hero, which he wasn't. What was a hopelessly awkward boy like him supposed to do in such a situation?

Piloting Eva was strangely easy for him from the start, a fact that had repeatedly earned Asuka's ire. Unit-01 seemed to share a natural bond with him, whether because of his mother or something else. But only a pilot could know the kind of burden Eva placed on someone. Even Misato, for all her caring, would never understand what it was like.

Shinji dared to glance up but avoided meeting their eyes. His postured had stiffened, his footsteps heavy. "Can I just check out? Please?"

Fuuka moved aside, watching him as he placed his basket on the counter. Shinji wished she would just go. The clerk went through usual routine, picking up each item, scanning it and placing into a bag. Shinji kept his attention fixed on the display showing his total rising with each scan. He had already figured it out in his head so he had an idea of what it would come up to, but he didn't want to look anywhere else.

Once the clerk was done, Shinji offered his card. The clerked swiped it silently and returned it, together with a receipt.

"Thank you," Shinji said out of politeness. He picked up his bags, turned and headed for the exit. The door chimed as he left.

Clear blue skies greeted him outside. Before Second Impact, when there were still seasons in Japan, it would have been Summer. June was fast approaching, and with it his birthday. For the first time he could remember, Shinji was actually looking forward to it.

The Third Child adjusted the earbuds in his ears and began the short walk home. There was no traffic on the streets, the once bustling sidewalks now mostly empty. Only a few people still lived in this part of the city, and because it was not a major thoroughfare it was rare to actually run into anyone. Shinji liked the solitude of it. His life was hectic enough.

He had just made it to the corner when he heard Fuuka's voice again.

"Ikari-san, may I ..."

Shinji stopped suddenly, his shoulders tensing in an instinctive response to unwanted intrusion. He didn't want to be rude to her, but neither did he want to talk, or have her follow him like this. He dropped his head and sighed again. Wasn't she happy that she had embarrassed him? What could she possibly want now?

But Fuuka must have picked up on his sullen manner, and her voice became lower. "I'm sorry if I offended you."

And that was when Shinji realized she didn't understand, and the realization startled him almost as much as hearing his name called out so prominently a moment ago. Stopping the music, he turned his head toward her, his young face serious but far from angry. Fuuka stood with her bag dangling at her side, locks of her short black hair brushed behind her left ear, her head bowed in apology.

"I … I'm not offended," Shinji murmured carefully, removing his earbuds.

Fuuka blinked her surprise. "Oh?"

Shinji tried his hand at a smile, more for her benefit than because he felt like it. "I'm just not used to being put on the spot like that."

"Still," Fuuka said, bowing a little deeper. "It wasn't my intention to do that. Where I'm from everyone usually keeps to themselves, but here, well, it's different. I thought being friendly was the polite thing to do."

Shinji shook his head. He had never felt comfortable with other people, especially ones he barely knew, but those words—the plain sincerity behind them—helped. He turned to face her fully, his hands together in front of him holding his shopping bag.

"It's not a big deal," he said. "And, um, you aren't supposed to use honorifics like that for someone younger."

"I didn't know that."

Shinji thought of a better example. "My Father is Ikari-san. I'm just Shinji."

"I understand." Straightening, Fuuka reached into her shopping bag. "Listen, I had planned to share this with someone else." She retrieved what looked like a cup of frozen yogurt. "But I don't think they'll mind if I share it with you instead. You are the Third Child, after all."

She stepped closer, holding out the yogurt in her outstretched hand like a peace offering. Shinji hesitated and almost took a step back. He didn't doubt her intentions. In the short time he had known her she had always seemed like a perfectly pleasant young woman. And he felt guilty that the way he had acted towards her had made her feel like she needed to apologize to him. She hadn't done anything. A lot of people wouldn't have bothered.

Shinji looked at the black sedan parked across the street, pressing his lips. Fuuka worked for NERV—for all he knew she was an undercover Section 2 agent herself. And Misato wouldn't have introduced him to someone she thought might pose a threat to him. That meant his guardian trusted her enough to want him to know who she was.

Slowly, Shinji reached out and took the yogurt. It was cold to the touch, but in the heat of the day it felt rather pleasant to hold in his palm.

"Come on," Fuuka said, her grin almost ear to ear. "Let's find a place to sit."

They found a small bench at a bus stop around the corner and sat, their shopping bags full of groceries at their feet. Mindful not to intrude on him, Fuuka left some room between them—enough that someone could have sat there comfortably. As Shinji began to consider the yogurt cup's foil top she handed him a plastic spoon.

Shinji peeled back the foil and dipped in his spoon, which he then held to his mouth. Strawberries—Asuka's favorite. He looked curiously at Fuuka, wondering if she could have known somehow, but she had her gaze firmly on the other side of the street, her yogurt untouched. Her round eyes had a familiarity to them he found disconcerting. He knew only one other person with that feature, and her eyes were a brilliant blue not green. But he knew them …

The last couple of weeks he had spent with Asuka felt like the happiest of his life. But he couldn't forget where he'd come from, what he and Asuka had been through. Those weren't the sort of wounds that could be healed by a little downtime, if ever. He would always remember hearing her scream as her mind was raped, while he stood by and did nothing. He would remember telling her he hated her and making her cry. And later, finding her in her room on the verge of an emotional breakdown after the incident with Keiko.

He would always remember what tragedy and regret looked like in those round eyes.

Fuuka smirked cynically when she noticed he was staring at her. "You must think I'm some kind of freak. A grown woman inviting a fourteen-year-old boy. I should be arrested, right?"

Shinji started shaking his head while she was still talking, but that did little to dissuade her.

"Don't get me wrong. I understand why you'd want to be left alone. Being alone means that nobody can hurt us. You must have been hurt enough to last you a lifetime." Fuuka paused and leaned back, turning her head to him. "But I couldn't help it. I had to talk to you."

Shinji looked at her for a long while, until the yogurt cup began to go warm in his hands. Then he finally said, "Why?"

Fuuka shook her head. "It would be unfair of me to place that burden on your shoulders." She waited a moment, then, as if making up her mind about something, added, "Thank you for indulging me."

Before Shinji could bring himself to say anything—even if he didn't know what that would be—she had stood up and was picking up her bag.

"It's not wrong to talk about yourself," she said. "Not everyone can do what you do, Shinji. You are special. You should be proud."

Shinji had gotten used to hearing that. Even his father had acknowledged that his mother would be proud of who he had become. He had to admit hearing those words had felt impossibly good, especially coming from him. But he didn't believe it. Pride was the sort of thing that belonged to people who made a choice to be courageous and place themselves in danger for the sake of others. The truth was that he had only enough courage not to let everyone down—he fought because he was obligated, not because he was brave.

Shinji watched as Fuuka walked down the sidewalk, eventually vanishing around the corner and out of sight. He sat there alone, then picked up his own shopping bags and headed off, finishing off the last of the yogurt as he went. Fifteen minutes later he was sliding his key card through the lock to Misato's apartment and stepping through the same familiar threshold he had crossed a thousand times in the last year.

"I'm home!" Shinji called out as he removed his shoes at the entrance, leaving them neatly nuzzled between Asuka's black leather school shoes and Misato's pink slippers. Socks rustling quietly, he walked into the kitchen and set the grocery bags down on the kitchen table, along with his S-DAT. "Asuka?"

A muted flush from the toilet answered him. The accordion-style door linking the kitchen to the bathroom opened with a racket and Asuka stepped out, clad in a skimpy pair of dark, tight shorts and a pink bra. Her creamy skin shimmered with perspiration.

Shinji, who had already begun opening cupboards to put away the groceries he had just purchased, stared at her with an open mouth. Asuka had never been shy about her clothing, and with a body like hers it was hard to argue, but the more comfortable she got with him the less she seemed to want to wear. One day he fully expected to find her going around the place completely naked.

Keen to press her advantage, Asuka tilted her head, golden-red bangs shifting across her forehead, and gave him a lop-sided smirk as she approached like a prowling cat. She didn't have to say what she wanted.

Shinji felt the rising heat of a blush on his cheeks as she came to within inches of him. In fact, the whole room felt suddenly very hot. He managed to keep from mentioning that.

"I, um …" Shinji gulped awkwardly. "Did you remember to wash your hands?"

Asuka scowled at him, thin eyebrows coming together. "Are you stupid?"

Maybe he was, because he couldn't think of a thing to say. He looked past her at the remaining groceries for need of an excuse.

"Ugh!" Asuka made a sour face and whirled around on her heels in a well-practiced show of annoyance. "Come find me when you are done playing houseboy."

Her nose so high in the air she could have tripped, she pushed pass him and marched around the table, a plume of golden-red hair trailing behind her, pretty bare feet pounding the tiled floor with a vengeance.

Shinji's gaze stuck to her until she had vanished into the living room, cursing his apparent lack of manhood along the way. He then glared resentfully at the groceries, as if this were somehow all their fault. They needed to get done, but it would never occur to Asuka to help him—chores were beneath her, as far as she was concerned. Then he imagined her in the living room, laying herself out in front of the TV, kicking her feet up in the air, looking bored. She needed to get done as well.

Shinji sighed. Sometimes he really felt like a houseboy. But the groceries were going nowhere and Asuka would only get moodier. On the face of it, it was an easy choice.

* * *

An hour after Shinji returned home Asuka Langley Sohryu stood directly under the thick spray of the shower, her head hung low. The soothing jets of hot water hit her skin like countless tiny, gentle fingers, soaking her hair instantly, running down her body and between her legs, tickling her there. She was sore—she was always sore afterward—and tired, physically and emotionally.

As a young, physically healthy teenage girl, her impetuous sex drive had often been more frustrating and irritating than anything else. The desire to mate, she had once read, was always strongest in the female of the species upon reaching maturity. She wasn't really sure that was true, and whoever wrote that had obviously never been in the same room with a teenage boy, but it proved surprisingly useful in explaining her budding sexuality as a natural thing, part of growing up. And she wanted to believe that. She hated being a child.

But sex only made everything worse. Over time, her emotions had become so tangled up that it was impossible to separate them from her physical urges. Having grown used to getting what she wanted, Asuka had not been prepared to _need _others that way. To actually desire something that she couldn't take on her own. And after that fateful night when she dared Shinji to tear down her wall of Jericho, sex and her emotions became synonymous with the awful feeling of rejection. It had hurt for the longest time.

It didn't hurt anymore—well, not exactly.

"Ouch." Asuka winced as she pressed a hand against her lower belly and was reminded how tender her body was.

Ritsuko had told her to leave the diaphragm in at least six hours after intercourse. She would have to be content with simply being clean for now. In hindsight she should have probably talked to Shinji about birth control before they started having sex on a regular basis, but somehow she always got caught up in the heat of the moment. And Shinji was so completely clueless when it came to these sort of things. He still didn't know.

She would tell him eventually, of course, but only when she was ready. That was how she did everything, and she wouldn't want Shinji to think she was getting soft on him. It would just make him lazy.

Around her, the hot water quickly produced a steamy mist in the small shower space that rose to the ceiling. Thick rivulets poured down her slender curves, washing away the sweat and grime into the drain between her feet.

Asuka lifted her head, closing her blue eyes as she took the full force of the shower on her face, smiling.

* * *

There was no night and day inside the Geo-front, but the artificial illumination did its best to keep up with the light and dark cycles.

Rei Ayanami knew from the sliver of white light shining through a gap in the curtains that is was morning. The rest of the room remained in twilight, the shapes of furniture, medical devices and toys appearing as gray forms. A couple slept on a futon, little more than a mattress thrown alongside the far wall. He had his arms around her protectively; they were in love. But Rei's attention was on the bed, and on the injured brunette girl who had become such an important part of her life.

In the quiet tranquility of the room, Keiko's breathing sounded slow and peaceful. Standing by the side of her bed, Rei saw her chest rise and fall gently under the sheets, wondered at her soft features, the locks of brown hair curling over the pillow. She hardly noticed the injuries anymore. They would always be part of Keiko—the arm would heal, the leg would not—but they were not who she was.

Rei, too, had wounds she would carry with her. So did the Second and Third. Everyone did. She had learned from Keiko, even if the girl had only taught her unintentionally through her suffering. Rei had held her while she cried a dozen times over, had listened to her laugh, seen her smile. But she hadn't felt sorry for her again. Keiko had made the choice: to endure this for the sake of her bonds to those she cared about. Bonds worth more than any pain, any heartbreak.

That was also a lesson.

She moved closer, her right hand clenched tightly. Almost as if sensing her familiar presence, Keiko stirred, and a moment later her brown eyes fluttered open. When she found Rei a smile curled on her face.

"Rei," Keiko whispered, her soft voice barely audible even in the quiet room. She rubbed her eyes with her left hand, the one not imprisoned in a plaster cast, and looked around. "What time is it?"

"Early," Rei said. "How do you feel?"

Keiko closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her chest rose under the thin sheets and even thinner hospital-issue gown. "I wish I could sleep a little more."

Rei wished she could let her sleep, but there was something important she had to do.

"I came to give you something." Rei reached down, gently taking Keiko's free left hand in hers in a way that made the young brunette blush a faint red. She felt her fingers curling inside her palm, a momentary reflex at being touched by another girl.

"Rei ..." Keiko murmured, then frowned as Rei pressed the small flat object into her hand. Rei moved back, and Keiko lifted the object she was now holding, examining it closely. But this did little to ease her confusion. "Your ID? What for?"

"It is the only picture of myself I have."

That was, at least in part, a lie. The picture indeed carried her image, but Rei herself had never had it taken—it was a stock photograph probably stored in a file somewhere. It belonged to the girl she had been before, the girl that Shinji Ikari had originally befriended and then lost. Keeping secrets had become an almost automatic part of her life, but just once she wanted to tell someone the truth, to be seen for the person she was, to be understood as she tried to understand others. She felt a tightness in her chest—she wanted so badly to tell Keiko. And yet she knew forcing this truth upon her would only bring pain and doubt on someone who did not deserve them. Keiko pursed her lips thoughtfully. She turned the ID card over, examined the black magnetic strip in the back for a second, then turned it back, her gaze focusing on the tiny square with Rei's picture. "You look bored." "I have to go now." Rei turned to leave. The words tasted bitter, but it was the best farewell could conceive. Shinji had once suggested not to say goodbye before a mission, and while he had offered that statement to someone else, it was still sound advice. Rei had lived all her life, however short, at a distance. She had made herself into a doll for others, doing their will and ignoring her own. She regretted that it had taken so long to find a bond, first with Shinji when he decided to talk to her again on that train ride, then with Keiko. And now that she had that she did not want to let it go. She did not want to say goodbye.

"Wait." Keiko winced as she suddenly sat up, and it was the first time Rei had ever seen her do that on her own. "Will I see you again?"

"You no longer need me," Rei told her, returning close to her side.

"That's not what I asked." Keiko pulled her hand away and pressed it against her chest, over her heart. She looked at Rei, her gaze trembling, fear of abandonment coloring her expression in a way she had not intended.

Severing their bond would hurt both of them equally, but she was glad that it had existed, and just as glad that, as long as they lived, it could be renewed. That was the beauty of their shared humanity—the pain of separation was the joy of reunion. Fate and purpose conspired to tear people apart, yet both of them lacked meaning onto themselves. Fate nullified free will, and purpose … all things had a purpose.

But it was the bond to others that gave meaning. It could change fate and shape purpose.

"There is something I need to do," Rei said. "Whether I will see you again, I do not know. To say that I will when I might not would be to make a promise I cannot keep."

Keiko shook her head. "Promise me anyway. I'll feel better."

"I promise."

Rei felt Keiko's touch again, gentle and warm, this time on her forearm. Slowly, it moved up her arm, brushing against the sleeve of her uniform blouse, the only thing she ever wore. Rei kept her eyes on the girl, and where before there had been fear now she saw comfort and reassurance. It made her chest swell that she could do that. Then she felt fingers on her collar, and a second later against her cheek.

"I owe you everything," Keiko whispered. Her hand began to move away, but Rei's face seemed to follow it on its own. Closer. "I want to give you something back. To say thank you. To say ..."

Rei leaned forward, locks of her short blue hair framing pale features. She hoped her eyes, surreal red, could convey the depth of her feelings because she did not know what expression could. "You do not have to say anything."

"That's fine. I wasn't really planning to."

And then she kissed her.

* * *

A girl's piercing shriek filled the morning air.

Slightly more awake than she had been a moment ago, Misato Katsuragi turned her head to the source of the commotion. Shinji, having already finished changing and sitting quietly on the nearby bench, also turned his head. Together they watched as Asuka emerged from behind the screen that had been set up to divide the locker room.

The young redhead was blushing fiercely, and with good reason.

The experimental plugsuit she had been asked to wear fit her slender form as tightly as her normal one and shared a similar color scheme, but the similarities stopped there. The whole torso, from her collar to well below her hips, the undersides of her arms and the palms of her hands, was a glossy transparent orange material. An opaque yellow strip ran across her chest, just enough to cover her budding breasts. The rest of the suit was shiny red, with two rows of green button-like sensors going down front and several leads on each thigh.

It was the sort of thing only a pervert would design, and only a bigger pervert would make a girl as young as Asuka wear it.

Misato had to admit, however, the colors, particularly the orange, suited her very nicely. "It looks good."

Asuka turned around, then looked down at herself over her left shoulder. The suit was slung just as low in back as it was on her front, and just as transparent. Her long, golden-red hair, falling loose without the usual neural connectors, could only hide so much. The line of her spine was clearly visibly, as were the dimples of her pelvic bone, and lower …

"Oh, God." Asuka squirmed on her tip-toes, twisting this way and that, then finally reached back and covered her bottom with her hands. "You can see everything!"

Misato folded her arms across her chest. You really could see everything, but she didn't need to tell Asuka that. "It's not so bad. I mean, considering your taste in swimsuits. I don't hear Shinji complaining."

The aforementioned brown-haired boy made a sharp squeaky noise, like a mouse caught in a trap. If he had thus far failed to complain, Misato felt sure it was only because he was too embarrassed for words.

Like Asuka, Shinji was dressed in a scandalously revealing plugsuit, done mostly in glossy blue with a transparent white torso showing his bare body underneath. There was no opaque strip across his chest, for anatomically obvious reasons, leaving his nipples visible, and the sensor disks on his front were red instead of green. He had large, rounded neural connectors nestled in his hair, looking like white half spheres with a rectangular wire extending forward.

"Of course not!" Asuka barked, turning again to show her front. Her face bristled with annoyance, but there was no hiding her blush—there was no hiding much of anything really. "He's a pervert!"

That got a fast blush from Shinji. "B-but—"

"And it's not like anyone wants to see him naked," Asuka added haughtily.

Shinji glanced up at her with a mixture of embarrassment and wounded pride. But Misato recognized good-natured ribbing when she saw it. Asuka was making fun of him as a way to distract attention from herself, not because she wanted to put him down. She did that a lot.

Her wards had grown so close lately it was almost impossible to find them apart. Asuka's boisterous claim that they were boyfriend and girlfriend had served to put things in perspective, but even without it Misato was pretty sure of the emotional connection between them. It wasn't just the physical sort of relationship she had found with Kaji in college, which ultimately made her feel distant and resulted in their eventual separation. No, what Asuka and Shinji shared was true affection—true love, if such a thing could even exist.

She envied them very much, but she was also very happy for them. And happier still that they seemed to be working out the worst of their awful childhoods.

Misato remembered fondly the moment she had shared with Asuka almost a month ago. When she offered, Misato had not seriously expected Asuka would allow her to put sunscreen on her—an act that required close personal contact. But Asuka did, and even after the uncomfortable subject of Kaji had come up, she had allowed Misato to continue. Misato had seen her grow up right in front of her eyes that day. She had barely been able to keep from hugging the bikini-clad redheaded girl.

Shinji, too, was growing up. He now sought Asuka out rather than languish on his own. He stayed in the living room when she and Misato were watching TV instead of retreating to the loneliness of his room. He spoke his mind a little more, and was a little more certain of himself. He even, on select occasions, talked back to Asuka, which infuriated and amazed her. It wasn't a huge change, and it only seemed to apply to his roommates, but it was enough that they had both noticed.

"Stop laughing!" Asuka cried.

"Sorry." Misato suddenly realized she had been smiling and put an end to it. She stiffened her posture a bit, letting marginal seriousness return to her features. "I was just—"

"This isn't funny!" Asuka clutched her arms to herself and began stomping her foot. "This suit is disgusting. I can't believe they'd want me to wear something like this!" As she yelled her face got progressively redder, the stomping louder and more violent. "This isn't a plugsuit, it's a slutsuit! What the hell were they thinking?"

Misato's voice remained calm. "I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation."

"There is, actually."

Misato, Asuka and Shinji turned in unison to the entrance of the locker room, where Maya Ibuki now cut a slender, delicate figure. Clad as always in her uniform, she held a clipboard in her arms. Her short brown hair fell down across brown eyes that sparked with intelligence. In fact, she was probably the smartest person in NERV, if not most of the country, aside from Ritsuko.

Asuka couldn't have cared less about any of that. She screeched and rushed behind the screen.

Misato heaved a sigh, shaking her head in frustration. She could understand Asuka's reluctance, but there were worse things than wearing something right out of a perverted old man's fantasies. "Asuka."

"I don't want her to see me!"

"That's going to be hard considering she's running the test."

Asuka stuck her head around the screen, gripping the edge with her gloved fingers. "What? What happened to Dr. Akagi?"

Misato wouldn't let her come anywhere near Asuka, that's what happened. But since the Chief of Operations technically had no control over the test roster, she had asked Maya to take over as a personal favor. Somehow, probably after a lengthy argument, Maya had gotten Ritsuko to delegate such duties completely to her. Misato certainly trusted her more than her former, so-called friend. That didn't resolve her reservations about the test.

"Dr. Akagi is busy," Maya explained, her voice soft. If she found Asuka's behavior unacceptable, she didn't let it show. "I'll be overseeing the simulators for this test. And to answer your previous question, the reason you are wearing special suits is because those have a much more comprehensive sensor array built into them."

"Oh, it's got lots of sensors alright," Asuka said ruefully. "Including the one in my butt."

"It's a small price to pay for accuracy," Maya replied.

Spoken like a true student of Ritsuko Akagi, Misato thought bitterly.

"This test is a little different than the usual," Maya added. "As you know, both Unit-01 and Unit-02 have S2 engines now. However, both your synch-ratios seem to have topped out. S2 energy production and the pilot's ability to synch are separate so an increase in combat efficiency in terms of your hardware—in other words, the S2 engine—does not mean an increase in efficiency on the part of the pilot."

Misato could tell from Shinji's puzzled expression that he didn't understand a word of that. He turned from Maya to her in search of a better explanation. It was far too early in the morning to even attempt it. She shrugged.

"But why does it have to be transparent?" Asuka cautiously stepped from behind the screen, blushing as she clutched her arms to her chest and closed her legs so tightly her knees bumped together. It was a strange sight seeing the boastful girl trying to make herself as small as possible.

"At least you are not being forced to do it in the nude like last time," Maya said, looking her over. "That didn't work out so well, remember?"

Asuka recoiled in an overly-exaggerated manner.

"I don't know, Maya," Misato said, grinning mischievously. "Asuka's cute, but I'm paying more attention to Shin-chan."

Everyone suddenly stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

Misato waved her hand and laughed. "Really, you guys are too easy."

After recovering from her shock, Maya addressed the children again, casting a suspicious eye towards Misato. "Yes, well, anyway. We'll be ready in a few minutes. MAGI had some calibration issues earlier so we're running a little late."

"You're making excuses," Asuka said sharply. "You still haven't finished telling us what this is about."

"To put it simply, we are trying to cross-reference your synch data. The S2 engines give your Evas unlimited power, but they don't give you unlimited endurance."

"So you are saying we—" Asuka pointed to Shinji with her nose "—are the problem."

"Not a problem. But the fact is that we are trying to help you keep up with the upgrades to your Eva. Dr. Akagi has an idea. The nerve link that connects you to your Evas, the A-10, is related to emotional connections as well. Introjected and imprinted connections, particularly. Given your, ah, improved relationship we thought it might be worthwhile to see if an increase in emotional responses would lead to a stronger link to the Eva."

Absently Asuka reached up with a gloved hand and touched the empty spot in her hair where one of her neural connectors would usually be.

"Dr. Akagi wants to establish a baseline for further experiments," Maya continued. "She believes it might be possible to use your signals to complement each other in times of severe mental stress. We could use this information to fill in gaps in your thought patterns or produce hardened defense and buffer mechanisms to guard against another mental assault."

"You haven't been messing around with Unit-02, have you?" Asuka pouted. "Because if you break it ..."

"We are not going to break it," Maya reassured her. "We know how much it means to you. Performance is at an all-time high. Changing anything would just be counterproductive at this point."

Shinji pressed his lips together, casting a thoughtful glance towards his red-clad fellow pilot, giving Misato the impression there was something about Asuka and Unit-02 he was keeping to himself—a secret to be shared only by lovers, perhaps.

Misato would never pry—not unless she were teasing, of course. But she was curious as to what it could be.

"Good." Asuka stooped to pick up her own set of oversized neural connectors from the bench, her movements as carefully measured as her mood. Using one hand to hold up her hair, she began clipping on the devices, first the right then the left.

Her questions answered to something approaching satisfaction, the redhead did not object when Maya suggested she should leave to finish preparing the simulators.

Misato stepped over to her wards, patted Shinji on the head and smiled at Asuka. "I'll see you both later."

Shinji nodded, acknowledging her. Asuka made an uppity noise and tightened her posture a bit. There was no anger or bitterness attached to the gesture anymore; now the characteristic haughtiness only deepened Misato's feelings of fondness for her. Just like old times, Misato thought. Just like she was in Germany—the only time Asuka had seemed to be happy.

And as she glanced down at Shinji she knew the reason. She let her hand linger a moment longer in his hair, brushing her fingers gently among the short brown locks. Until she noticed Asuka glaring at her. The same jealous glare she always used upon seeing her and Kaji together.

Definitely like old times.

As Misato followed Maya out of the locker room, she saw Asuka move in front of Shinji and glower at him. "And you—" she kicked him, somewhat playfully yet still rather hard. "I bet you are loving this. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Shinji stammered in his own defense, but Misato was out of earshot before any reply could be made. She caught up with Maya as the younger woman waited for the elevator that would take her to the test chambers up above.

"Is there something else, Major?" Maya gave her an inquisitive glance. Her dark brown eyes betrayed an element of tension that hadn't been there a moment before.

Misato took a deep breath.

"I wanted to talk to you alone," she started, her words carefully measured. "I would never force you to show doubt in front of the children. They need to be able to trust the people around them. But I don't. I have to know if you really think this is a good idea."

"What do you mean?" Maya said, frowning.

"I looked at the schedule. This test wasn't programmed for another month. That means either Ritsuko or yourself moved it up. I don't think you would do such a thing—at least not without informing me. That leaves Ritsuko. I want to know why."

"Doctor Akagi doesn't need to explain her actions to me." Maya said and dropped head her in a sign of unmistakable dejection. "A lot of times I wish she did. The reality is I do what she asks me. If I don't, she'll just ask someone else. I'm sure she has good reasons."

Misato didn't buy it, and it was obvious neither did Maya—she had never been a good liar. "You don't sound like you believe that."

"No, it's just ..."

The elevator opened with an electronic ping, shimmering aluminum doors sliding apart. Maya glanced at the empty space for a second then stepped inside. Misato followed her in, folding her arms and leaning against the back wall. Maya stayed in front of the control as she pushed the button for her floor, then hung her head.

"I …" Misato heard a catch in Maya's voice. "Please don't ask me to betray Doctor Akagi's confidence."

"I already know about the Emerald Tablet," Misato said bluntly. "I know what she did to Asuka."

Maya rounded on her, her eyes wide with fear.

"How?"

Misato tried to remember her confrontation with Ritsuko, then decided she didn't want to. "I put a gun to her head. She told me."

"Major, I swear … I had nothing to do with that. Unit-00 was my priority. Getting Unit-02 to work was Doctor Akagi's. I didn't know how far she'd go. The Tablet—the program, I thought it was just supposed to be an aide to help Asuka synch with her Eva. Her mind was too broken. She couldn't manage it on her own. And we needed—"

"I don't care what you needed."

"I'm sorry, Major." Maya seemed on the verge of tears. She was clutching her hands to her small chest protectively and shaking slightly. "You are right. And if I could have stopped Dr. Akagi, I would have. Asuka … she didn't deserve to be treated like that."

Misato could tell she meant it. Very few people wore their emotions on their sleeve quite the same way Maya Ibuki did. She was easily impressed, and, at times, even more easily manipulated. In her, Ritsuko had found the perfect lackey, someone who not only looked up to her for her intelligence but actually adored her. Another victim.

She couldn't blame her, could she? After all, she had also failed to protect Asuka, like she had failed Shinji before when he needed her most. Ritsuko was responsible, there was no doubt about that, but the guilt was Misato's. "Maya ..."

The young operator gave a yelp. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone!"

"I believe you," Misato said finally. "That's why I'm letting you go on with this test. I assume you looked at the brief and found nothing to be concerned about. Even if it was Ritsuko who devised it and changed the schedule, I trust your judgment."

"I …" Maya seemed truly surprised, "thank you."

The doors opened again, but this time Maya payed no attention to them. Her face was blank, her eyes, which she wiped with the back of her hand, a stinging crimson. Misato pointed out the obvious. "This is your floor, isn't it?"

Maya snapped her head as if coming out of a trance, saw the open door behind her and offered Misato a look of unrestrained gratitude. "Will you be there for the test?" she asked.

"Yeah. Call me up when you get started."

"I will, Major."

With Maya taken care of, and reasonably assured that the children were in good hands, Misato made her way to the control bridge, moving through halls she had used so many times she had now memorized them without realizing it.

A final door slid open with an electronic hum, and Central Dogma's bridge loomed in front of her like a huge cavern. Arranged in tiers, almost like the battlements of a medieval castle, the towering bridge occupied the rear half of the room. Most the personnel worked on the middle tier, a broad deck with banks of computers along the leading edge. The front of the room was slanted, located as it was on the inside of one of the pyramid's sides. A large holographic display along the wall allowed combat information to be quickly relayed simultaneously to the operators manning numerous consoles. The floor of the room was a large 3-dimensional map of Tokyo-3 and its surroundings.

The quiet humming of the MAGI downstairs filled the air with white noise. Misato's own ankle-length boots were much louder on the metal deck as she walked, attracting the attention of those who would have otherwise missed her bright red jacket.

Without saying a word or acknowledging anyone, Misato dropped herself into a nearby chair, and almost instantly had a hot cup of coffee held up to her. It smelled wonderful—obviously fresh brewed. She took it before she knew who was giving it to her, and only then looked up.

Misato's gratitude was genuine. "Thank you, Hyuga."

"Don't mention it." The bespectacled operator nodded. Grabbing a cup for himself, he pulled up a chair from a console and sat next to her. "You looked like you could use a pick-me-up."

Misato spared a glance at the command deck above them. Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki stood there with his hands clasped behind his back. Shortly afterward Commander Ikari joined him, stern-faced as always. He sat at his desk, folding his hands in front of his face.

"You always know what I need," Misato said to Hyuga, keeping her attention on her superiors.

"If we don't take care of one another, who will?"

* * *

Ritsuko Akagi walked across the parking section and up to the small checkpoint. Beyond the sheltered spaces under the deck, bright morning sunlight illuminated a roadway that led off into the outskirts of Tokyo-3. To the right of the road a steep mountainside rose up, part of the topography that surrounded this entrance into the underground fortress. A thick red-white gate spanned the road. The small guardhouse held only a single guard, a young blonde man who Ritsuko often talked to on her trips up here for a smoke.

She had been careful to establish a pattern of behavior. At first the guards had been suspicious about why someone so high up the chain of command would come this way, but the more she did it the more they seemed to become used to it. Ritsuko suspected they even enjoyed having her around.

As Ritsuko came up to the gate, the blonde guard stepped out to greet her. He was young, even by NERV standards. His eyes were small, a very dark brown. Like her own hair color, his probably had more to do with chemicals in a bottle than genes.

The man saluted. "Up for another one, eh, Doctor Akagi?"

Ritsuko answered by pulling a cigarette from her coat pocket. "It's a good excuse for getting some fresh air, don't you think? Everyone seems to be against smoking these days. It makes me feel like an outcast."

"Sorry to hear that, ma'am," the guard said, sounding truly apologetic.

"Don't be," Ritsuko told him, holding up a lighter to the tip of her cigarette and breathing in. "It's not your fault."

Trailed by a puff of gray smoke, Ritsuko moved around the gate, into the open air outside the shadow of the parking deck, which connected to one of receiving areas deep underground. She had memorized the layout, every turn, every way station, every checkpoint. She knew how many people to expect, and how many of them might pose a danger.

This area was rather secluded, as were many of the outlying parking and service sections used by NERV employees. High priority staff—those who owned vehicles anyway—had assigned parking much closer to the pyramidal headquarters building at the center of the Geo-front. But the closer one got, the tighter the security became. This particular area was very low priority, and NERV had lost so much lower echelon staff that it was also almost always empty. The only reason to guard it was the entrance. From here the trip to the heart of Central Dogma would be longer, but it was the isolation that made it perfect for Ritsuko's plan.

She had gone over everything repeatedly in her head. There was no hesitation, no remorse about what she would do, and the only thing she regretted was the fact that this opportunity had not presented itself sooner. But she had to be careful. Even the best laid plans seldom survived first contact with the enemy, a lesson she had learned the hard way while fighting the angels. This would be no different.

"Are you alone again today?" Ritsuko asked absently.

The guard crossed the gate behind her and joined Ritsuko at the side of the road. Carved into the mountain, the entrance looked like a tunnel from the outside.

"Yes, ma'am. Unfortunately we don't have the resources for tighter security. I'm lucky we have enough in the budget for this." He ran his fingers along the strap hanging across his body—the strap leading to a sub-machine gun. "Not that I have anything to shoot."

Ritsuko found the comment ironic. The gun was mostly for show; NERV never expected that any of their security personnel would ever have to fire their weapon. It was simply not what NERV was designed to do. "It's a quiet post. You should be grateful."

His face turned serious. "When I hear about what goes on downstairs I really think I am."

"I am sure whatever you've heard is probably true."

"Like the Second Child trying to kill that new pilot?"

"Everyone is a victim of circumstances out of their control." Somehow Ritsuko knew he would go there. Asuka's actions during that battle still caused distrust and even resentment among the staff. But they didn't know what Ritsuko did: the truth. In a way it was very convenient that Asuka had never cared what they, barely worthy of scraping the used LCL from her entry plug as far as she was concerned, thought.

"Yeah, I suppose so," the guard said half-heartedly

"Not always, of course," Ritsuko added. "There are times when we choose to act, and the way we act reveals a lot about ourselves."

The words had barely left Ritsuko's lips when she heard a noise—a soft pump and the swooshing of air—a second before the guard's head snapped forward and he crumpled to the ground in a heap, unconscious. The small ring airfoil rubber projectile bounced up in the air, spinning end over end and bouncing harmlessly at Ritsuko's feet. She knelt to check the man's pulse. He would be fine aside from a rather intense headache. Then she looked at the projectile.

"Less-than-lethal," a voice said behind her. "As ordered."

By the side of the road, to Ritsuko's right, a part of the underbrush moved and she saw the figure of a man kneeling there, his uniform covered in a green-brown camouflage pattern that blended in with the vegetation around him. In his hands was a bulky rifle, the unusual diameter required by this sort of non-lethal projectile.

"I was beginning to worry," Ritsuko said, though, of course, she hadn't. Men like Kluge were as obstinate about their schedules as she was with hers. And he knew timing was critical. Just about now Maya would be finishing her preparations and the children would be in their entry-plug simulators.

"Are we secure?" the JSSDF sniper asked.

Straightening, Ritsuko retrieved a PDA from her coat pocket, and accessed a remote node inside the MAGI's firewall after using her personal security code. She had thought that perhaps she should use a falsified code, but that seemed like a rather pointless waste of her time; Ikari would know exactly who had done it just as soon as he became suspicious. Ritsuko was counting on it. He had to be predictable.

Trading away all the hundreds of hours she had spent optimizing NERV's security protocols, its back-up and fail-safe systems, its intrusion detection algorithms, Ritsuko subverted all of it with a single line of code.

-initiate security program: wormwood.

The PDA flashed, then the crossing gate on the road behind her opened. At that very moment, Ritsuko knew all the monitoring devices at this entrance were turned off. Security measures disengaged, doors unlocked and opened. The program would spread in a precise, pre-determined pattern. It was only a matter of time.

"We are secure," Ritsuko confirmed casually, as if what she had just done were akin to reading a boring headline from the newspaper.

"Acknowledged."

Ritsuko slipped her PDA back in her pocket, and heard the rumble of engines up the road.

Two military trucks emerged around a bend in the road. They were heavy vehicles, painted a matte black from bumper to bumper. Engines rumbling, they stopped just before the gate. Transporting personnel in such a way was not unusual; there was an entire JSSDF division stationed around the outskirts of Tokyo-3 ready to respond to any angel-related emergency. More than once NERV had benefited from their presence, a support role most military leaders resented.

Musashi Kluge, clad in black combat gear, climbed down from the leading truck's cabin. Despite his considerable age he cut an imposing figure, and the flack jacket made him look burly, compensating for his thin frame. There was a sidearm strapped to his right thigh with ammo pouches around his waist, a microphone around his throat. The lines on his face seemed deeper in the bright sun, his features sharp enough to be threatening even without the weapons he carried. Beneath a wrinkled brow, his dark eyes bristled with violence.

As he walked to Ritsuko, Kluge signaled at the fallen guard with his arm, and a pair of similarly black-clad soldiers jumped down from the back of the truck. Unlike their master, they wore helmets and crimson-tinted combat goggles. Their faces were covered by balaclavas, making them completely anonymous—nameless cogs in the JSSDF's military industrial machine. Tools.

Tools like she had been. But no longer.

"We are moving," Kluge said, his voice a hard, harsh drawl. "Forward units of 4th Mountain will be in place along the access routes you recommended within minutes."

Ritsuko nodded, watching as the two soldiers dragged the guard to the side out the road. "I haven't heard any aircraft."

"Battalion commanders wanted to wait until the surveillance systems were off-line," Kluge explained. "Air support or not, they know they don't stand a chance against the Evas. Now they will begin strategic deployment. We will have to trip the alarms, however, if we want the staff and the civilians to be where we want them."

"Your concern for others is touching."

Kluge ignored her sarcasm. He tapped on the side of the truck, causing the driver to open the door and jump out. Finally, he turned back to Ritsuko. "As far as the Minister of the Interior is concerned Ikari is the only terrorist here."

Ritsuko found herself grinning. Musashi Kluge might be a ruthless, bloodthirsty killer, but his boss was a politician. And politicians were painfully aware of public opinion. Slaughtering hundreds, possibly thousands of Japanese citizens, not to mention children, would look bad. She had little doubt Kluge's new-found regard for human life stemmed less from a desire to spare NERV personnel and more from his own orders. If she used to be a tool, then he was still a dog on a leash.

Kluge climbed into the cab, sitting himself behind the large steering wheel. He scowled at Ritsuko. "We should not wait any longer. 4th Mountain will begin their maneuvers any time now."

Ritsuko tossed away her cigarette and walked around the front of the truck. Getting into the cabin was tricky wearing her high heels but she managed. She took the passenger's seat and slammed the door next to her.

The cabin was small and uncomfortable, much smaller than it seemed from the outside. It became immediately apparent that the doors, consoles, windshield and floor were thickly armored, reducing the interior space. Separating the front of the truck from the cargo cabin was a thick metal plate with a slot in the middle, also armored.

"Wouldn't a man in your position rather have someone else do the driving?" Ritsuko asked Kluge.

"A man in my position likes to be in charge of his own fate." He put the truck in gear, and it rumbled forward, through the gate and into the covered space of the parking deck. The second truck followed in behind them, then it stopped again inside the parking deck and soldiers began pouring out, all clad in black.

"They will secure the access point behind us," Kluge explained.

Ritsuko leaned back in her seat. The die was cast, she told herself. She felt neither fear nor regret. She had thought of everything, justified everything. By the end of the day she would be vindicated.

* * *

The first indication that something was wrong came as a flashing red node on the holographic map. Then, before Misato could blink, the entire map vanished in static. She straightened in her chair, but pointing out the problem proved unnecessary. A second later an alarm went off.

"MAGI firewall elements are being activated," Haruna called out from her station. "Seventeen sectors have been shut down so far."

Hyuga jumped to his feet, and then into his console at the forward edge of the bridge. His hands moved over his keyboard with incredible speed.

"Do we have any information on what tripped the firewall?" Misato asked, rising and making her way to the center of the bridge.

"There have been no outside transmissions for the last hour," Aoba, sitting to Misato's left, said. "No incoming traffic, either. The network is silent."

Misato frowned. "Get Ritsuko," she ordered. She turned to Hyuga. "Run a pattern analysis in the mean time. Just in case."

"Pattern analysis negative," Hyuga reported within a few moments. "This is not an angel."

"Well, that's good," Misato said, chewing her lip. Unfortunately for her, ruling out an angel attack also ruled out most of her expertise. She wasn't a computer person—it took Hyuga to configure most of the software on her laptop. She gave him an apologetic look. "What now?"

"There doesn't seem to be an external threat. We are not being hacked." He brought up a schematic of the MAGI system on the main display, showing the three supercomputers as a triad of white boxes interconnected by white lines. A tiny red squared was flashing inside 'Balthazar'. "Dr. Akagi re-calibrated some components earlier so this might simply be a compatibility issue with whatever new components she installed. MAGI can run diagnostics and change parameters as needed."

"I have lost surveillance along access route 56," Haruna called. "Security nodes failing in all sectors. Access commands are being refused."

The red square inside Balthazar continued to grow, absorbing nearby sectors.

"Balthazar is locked out," Hyuga said. "Attempting to isolate connections." He turned a worried glance to Misato. "Major, this doesn't make sense. We aren't being attacked, but this is following hacking parameters."

Misato considered. "You said there wasn't an external threat. What about an internal one?"

He shook his head. "There isn't enough computing power in this installation to hack the MAGI. The only thing that could hack one of the nodes would be one of the other two, and that's impossible. It would be like a part of your body attacking itself."

Not unheard of, Misato thought. Often field doctors were forced to cut off body parts in order to save the wounded because their bodies wouldn't stop attacking them due to infection.

"Where's Ritsuko?"

"She hasn't answered her pager," Haruna said.

Misato grumbled under her breath. Ritsuko oftentimes seemed to be hanging over everyone's shoulders, showing up when you least expected her. Now that they actually needed her she was nowhere to be found. Misato took her cellphone and quickly found Ritsuko's number. Here she paused, realizing she was about to break a vow to never ask her for something again. But she didn't know what else to do.

Ignoring her pager, which Ritsuko always carried with her, was strange in and of itself, but she wouldn't ignore a call. Misato had left it in no uncertain terms that their friendship was over; their contacts were to be strictly work related. And she must know that Misato wouldn't call unless it was very important.

The phone rang. Then, in the middle of the second, it stopped. Nobody answered.

"Major, all surveillance systems are down." Hyuga was shaking his head. "We've got nothing—no early warning, no radar, IR, electromagnetic. We are effectively blind."

"All communication lines are filed with static," Aoba added. "Even our hardlines."

Misato lowered her still-silent phone. "Something is very wrong."

As soon as Misato uttered those words, the MAGI schematic on the main display turned to a flashing red error message. The lights flickered, then faded into nothing. A moment later the emergency lighting flooded everything with a crimson hue.

"What was that?"

"We've lost all access to MAGI," Hyuga said, both hands moving frantically over his keyboard. Then, as if pulled back by an invisible force, they froze. "My console is not responding."

That report was soon echoed by every technician in the darkened bridge.

"We are locked out from our own computer system," Hyuga added. "This isn't just software or hardware failure. The last diagnosis reported that two of the three MAGI nodes remained unaffected. I believe that means that Balthazar triggered something to disable all commands from the bridge. Possibly a hidden command in its programming. Essentially, it's erected a firewall to keep _us_ out."

Misato brushed her left sleeve over her forehead, wiping off beads of sweat that had begun to form. Ritsuko would know what to do next. Maybe she should send for Maya.

"Um, Major, I think I might know how to get around the firewall." Hyuga turned to her in his chair. The red light made his spectacles glow like crimson disks, hiding his eyes. He made a gesture with his hand, which Misato understood to mean he wanted her to come closer.

Misato did, aware of the prying ears all around them. She leaned in over his shoulder, making as if to look at his console. "Hyuga, this isn't the time for secrets."

"I'm sorry." He hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind. "I set up a by-pass for you, remember? When we hacked into MAGI's mainframe?"

"You did but ..." Several months ago, before Asuka was initially released from the hospital, she had been on an information gathering binge. Kaji had entrusted her with finding the truth, and she had been so focused on it that she allowed Shinji to become distant and Asuka to languish in the Cranial Nerve Ward.

She and Hyuga had spent night upon night digging up information, old files, proof. She had never been sure of what she was looking for, only that she would know it when she saw it. It turned out to be confirmation of what she already believed. It didn't surprise her. Yet despite that, she hadn't gone anywhere. She refused to betray NERV. And because of that she had once again sent those she cared for into danger.

It had been a long time since she had Hyuga access MAGI's servers, but the backdoor he had created was still in place. Evidently he believed it could be useful later down the road. Misato found the idea tempting; she didn't want to depend on Ritsuko. She also didn't want to betray the fact that she had been doing something she wasn't supposed to, especially something of such magnitude—like hacking into the MAGI's mainframe—that it would land her in the brig.

"Is this the only thing you can think of?" Misato asked.

Hyuga, to his credit, still gave it some thought, never the sort to rush into decisions without proper counsel. Then he nodded. "Without Dr. Akagi … yes."

There was no need for Misato to give the order. Hyuga could read her decision on her face. He began to rise out of his chair. "I'll get my laptop."

Misato watched him hurry across the deck, feeling that soft spot she had developed for him grow warmer in her chest. Then she noticed Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki leaning forward on the rail above her.

"Major Katsuragi," he said, his voice calm, "I sincerely hope you are not planning to subvert the MAGI."

What was the point in denying anything at a time like this?

"Dr. Akagi is MIA, sir," Misato replied as bluntly as she could without being disrespectful. "I'm open to other ideas you might have."

Fuyutsuki looked at Ikari, who remained sitting at his desk as though none of this were his concern. He turned back to Misato, no hint of anger or even disapproval on his aged face. "None seem to present themselves at the moment."

"Then I'll assume I have permission to proceed. But if it makes you feel better, sir, you are free to turn the other way."

* * *

Fuyutsuki actually fought the urge to laugh. He had always enjoyed Major Katsuragi's sense of humor. The fact that she might have set up illicit access into the MAGI was fine with him as well. Whatever the Major was up to, and whatever she had found, had not been enough to keep her from doing her duty. He thought that commendable. The man sitting next to him might not agree.

It hardly mattered. The larger repercussions of the situation had not gone awry of either of them, and though neither had stated the obvious, he knew what Ikari must have been thinking. One did not work with someone for so long without developing a sixth sense that bordered on mind reading.

"Dr. Akagi is missing," Fuyutsuki said, turning his head towards Ikari. He remained standing still and perfectly straight, his hands clasped at the small of his back. "Very unusual."

"And yet not unexpected," Ikari said. With his hands in front of his face it was impossible to see his mouth move. His voice betrayed no emotion.

Fuyutsuki nodded. "My thoughts exactly." He paused, considering that the answer to his next words would likely change everything. "Do you think she has finally made her move?"

"Yes."

The sudden influx of dread Fuyutsuki expected didn't come. Instead, he felt a gentle sense of relief. An ending was not such a terrible thing when you could control how it would end. Over the last months they had made all the necessary preparations, and even if Ikari had gotten reckless, Fuyutsuki still trusted him to do what they had always planned.

"Ritsuko wouldn't attempt something like this without a plan," Fuyutsuki said. "She will know what you will try to do."

"What is Rei's last known location?"

Fuyutsuki checked his private console, found the answer, then gave Ikari a knowing look.

"I see." Like a statue rising after a million years of frozen inactivity, with heavy, measured effort, Gendo Ikari got to his feet. "I will go down to her."

Fuyutsuki returned his attention to the deck below, where Misato Katsuragi stood with her arms now folded over her chest. The gigantic error message on their main display continued to blink intermittently. "This is it then. We cannot fight the future, but we can shape its form."

"It was a pleasure working with you, professor."

Fuyutsuki nodded. "Likewise."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ikari step onto his private elevator at the back of the observation deck. Holding the rail with one hand, he flipped the switch and the elevator slowly began to descend. A part of Fuyutsuki wished he could go with him, but he knew his place was here, alongside all those who had toiled and suffered for one man's ambition.

One man's selfish desire to be with the one he loved again.

* * *

Hyuga ran a bundle of cables from one of the MAGI terminals directly to his laptop. He placed the laptop on his console and reoccupied his chair, with Misato hanging over his left shoulder. In the course of his labor, several other technicians had left their stations and were now huddling around them.

After logging in, Hyuga accessed the laptop's command-line console where he could manually type in what he wanted the computer to do. Misato had seen him do this many times, and was always in awe at his skill. His fingers flew over the small keyboard. The alarm that had been blaring since the first activation of the firewall had been shut off, and so the rapid clicking of the keystrokes filled the empty silence.

"When I set this up, I used a MAC ghosting utility to simulate any physical address in the network as a way to cover our tracks," Hyuga explained, ignoring some of the reproachful looks sent in his direction. "There is also a general access address for the mainframe. MAGI can't store enough data in its on-board memory. Sorting processes would take too long. Mainframe access allows for more complex indexing by off-site processors, leaving MAGI's higher functions free for more important tasks."

Misato scowled. "Hyuga ..."

"Sorry." He shook his head apologetically. "It's just the excitement talking."

She patted his shoulder. "Just do your thing."

Hyuga got to work, and it wasn't long before his screen filled rows upon rows of computer language, long strings of code the meaning of which Misato could not begin to decipher. The rows scrolled down automatically at a fast pace, but Hyuga's eyes moved mechanically over them without missing a beat.

Misato had begun to feel her head spin when her cellphone rang. She fetched it from her jacket pocket, flipped it open and held it to her ear. "Yes?"

She heard Ritsuko's voice. "It's me."

Misato straightened, feeling a prickle at the back of her neck. "Ri-chan, where are you? We are having all kinds of problem with the MAGI. We need you up here."

"I know," Ritsuko said. There was a rumbling noise like an engine in the background. "Is the Commander there with you?"

Looking up at the observation deck, Misato saw only the Sub-Commander standing there, hands behind his back. Ikari's desk was empty. "No," she told the voice on the phone. "He's gone."

"Alright." There was a long pause. "Listen to me, Misato. Do not do anything. I know you will feel like you have to interfere—like it's your duty. Don't. You will only be endangering everyone."

Misato narrowed her eyes, the prickling at the back of her neck becoming a stab in her chest. "Ritsuko, what the hell are you talking about?"

"The situation has been arranged a certain way. Comply and no harm will come to you or those you care about."

The bottom fell out of Misato's stomach. The ones she cared about … the children.

Real anger flared in her voice the next time she spoke. "I swear to God, Ritsuko, if you hurt those kids there isn't a power in this world that will keep me from hunting you down."

"They will be safe as long as they stay where they are," Ritsuko replied coldly. "I have seen to it. Contrary to what you might think, I have never wanted to hurt them. Everything I have done is justified by the situation. We wouldn't have survived this long if there were no sacrifices. I regret that it had to come to this, but it was my choice."

"Ritsuko, what have you done?"

"I will explain everything when it's time."

She hung up.

Misato stared at the phone's tiny LCD screen for a long, silent moment, struggling to keep her face from losing its composure. In an awful instant of realization it became painfully clear that Ritsuko had disabled the MAGI as part of some plan to … to do what? And why would she mention the children?

Suddenly worry overwhelmed Misato's anger. She had left the children with Maya, performing a test that Ritsuko had both devised and moved up on the schedule without warning or explanation. Why couldn't the test wait? Why did it have to happen today?

The answer was so obvious it was almost stupid.

And then, practically at the same instant, the error message on the room's main display resolved back into a holographic map. A thousand red dots flowed from a network of red lines, like bloodshot arteries, reaching down from the surface towards Central Dogma. One by one, digital windows opened all along the edges of the map like tiny picture frames, showing video surveillance feeds from access points to the Geo-Front, and blown doors, smoke, and fully geared combat troops moving in.

"Oh, God ..." somebody whispered.

Everyone in the bridge stared in horror at the screen. The images continued to stream. Tanks moved into view, aircraft streaked overhead as the bulk of 4th Mountain, a battle-ready and armed to the teeth JSSDF division bore down on them.

NERV was being invaded.

"Declare a Level One alert," Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki ordered from his perch above them. "Seal us off."

"I can't," Hyuga responded, still in shock. "I've only gained access to the video streams. All commands are still locked out. We can't even lock the doors or stop the elevators. We can see, but we are paralyzed."

That caused a ripple of alarm. Misato did her best to remain calm, trying to consider the options still available to them.

"We are not designed to repel an army division," Haruna cried out, her hands clasped over her mouth, wide eyes trembling. "We won't last very long like this."

Misato agreed grimly, her gaze intently focused on the images on the screen. The JSSDF had acted with perfect timing, and it seemed that in shutting down the MAGI, Ritsuko had left them wide open. She must have been planning this for a while. Misato felt rage beginning to build inside of her. Her hands clenched into fists.

There was only one thing in NERV's arsenal with the ability to hold off an entire division. Actually, two things. Piloted by the two most important people in Misato's life. She cursed the blonde doctor under her breath. Deploying the Evas would mean sending Shinji and Asuka into combat, risking their lives for the sake of everyone else in NERV. Only this time the enemy was not a towering creature bent on destruction, but their fellow men. Other people.

A new window opened on the map. A group soldiers, dressed all in black, moved down a brightly lit corridor, far closer than the rest of the JSSDF units. Too close. Inside Central Dogma itself.

"Where is that?" Misato pointed at the map.

Hyuga quickly checked his schematic. "The medical complex."

"How the hell did they—"

Another window blinked into the display, and like the previous one it showed soldiers, like black shadows, moving down a hallway—a hallway Misato recognized. "Call Maya," she ordered. "Tell her to get the children out of the testing chamber."

"Communication lines are filled with static," Aoba said. "Even the PA system is inoperative."

Misato cursed. Cold fear gripped her heart, but also, suddenly, determination. For all the chaos and confusion on the bridge, something had just become crystal clear. She had to get to Maya somehow. She had to get to the children. They were their only hope.

"Hyuga," she said briskly, "Eva launch capabilities take priority over everything else. Find a way to get them ready and prepared for emergency sortie."

"Major?"

She ignored the worried tone in his voice as she marched towards a side console, opened a drawer, and took her sidearm, a black USP-9. She slipped a magazine into the grip and pulled the slide, then placed the gun into the shoulder holster under her jacket. Two extra magazines went into her pockets.

"We don't stand a chance unless we get Asuka and Shinji out there," she said, striding back to Hyuga's side with purpose. "They must know that as well. That's why Ritsuko disabled our defenses. They don't have anything to counter the Evas."

Hyuga looked uncertain. "But the pilots—"

"I'll see to the pilots." Misato slapped Hyuga's shoulder. "I'll make sure they get to the cages. Just have everything ready for us. I'm counting on you. I always have, and always will."

He nodded, giving her a faint smile that warmed her heart. She wished there had been time to know him better. Perhaps if her feelings for Kaji had been different there might have been a chance for Hyuga, but it was too late now. She trusted him with her life, as a close friend. That was as far as it went.

She moved away from him, and cast her gaze upwards to the Sub-Commander. "Sir, I request to be relieved of my bridge duty for the time being."

He could refuse, of course, and, frankly, it wouldn't make any difference to Misato. She was going to get the children, even if it meant shooting her way through an entire JSSDF division. Because she knew what those soldiers inside Central Dogma were here for, and she would die before she let them put their hands on Asuka and Shinji. She had made too many mistakes. She had done too many things she regretted. No more.

The refusal she expected didn't come. Instead, Fuyutsuki bowed his head in a gesture of what, to Misato, seemed like honest respect. "Very well," he said slowly. "I will take charge of things here."

She knew then that he understood, but also had the feeling that he was holding something back. She had essentially just asked to commit dereliction of duty, and he agreed. It didn't really matter. "Thank you, sir."

She was almost to the exit, her gait wide and determined when he called back to her.

"You may want to call on the Lieutenant, Major," he said. "I don't suppose taking on a squad of JSSDF solders by yourself is a good idea."

Misato frowned up at him suspiciously. "What Lieutenant?"

He raised a hand and made as if to brush back locks of hair behind his right ear. It was a gesture Misato had seen repeatedly, though always performed by someone else. Someone who wasn't what she seemed.

She stared.

He held her astonished gaze a moment before turning his attention to the main display and the distressing images flashing there. Misato didn't think it would be wise to ask what he knew about Fuuka Sanada's squad of commandos, but she was aware of the fact that if he knew that meant the Commander did as well. And, for some unfathomable reason, they had allowed it.

Under any other circumstances, Misato would have wondered why they hadn't arrested her. She would have wondered about Fuuka's loyalties, and possible betrayal. But none of that would help her do what she had to do now. She would get answers later—if there was a later.

With one last look at Fuyutsuki she vanished through the door, already holding her cellphone to her ear. She recognized Fuuka's light voice instantly. "Hello?"

"We are under attack," Misato said bluntly, without preamble. Fuuka was an experienced commando; she had likely heard that a hundred times over. "I believe the JSSDF is going after the children. Meet me in the main testing chamber. Expect possible resistance."

Fuuka showed no hint of surprise. No hesitation. Her voice remained cool. She didn't even pose a question or request clarification. "Roger."

"And send someone to the medical complex," Misato added. "Nakayima might need some help."

Again, no hesitation. "Will do."

Misato hung up and dialed again. She was at the end of the hall now, walls of bare silver metal shimmering around her. A quick glance at the elevator was all she needed to confirm it wasn't working. She cursed, and in the same breath hurried down another hall to the stairs.

The phone was answered halfway through the first ring. But before she could say so much as a word of warning, Nakayima's voice came through as a low, harsh whisper.

"Not now. They're coming."

* * *

"Stop looking at me like that!" Asuka screeched, clutching her arms in front of herself, her face visibly flustered. "It's embarrassing!"

"S-sorry." Shinji immediately averted his eyes, staring instead at the brilliant metal floor.

For the last fifteen minutes he had been standing with his back against one of the cylindrical test plugs, trying his best to keep from staring at his redheaded companion. The testing chamber was a large rectangular room illuminated by bright lights, containing three test plugs, exact replicas of the entry-plugs used in the Evas, which rose out of the floor like huge diagonal tubes. They were labeled for each of the Eva units they replicated, from 00 to 02. A large observation window hung overhead.

Shinji had been in this room countless times, usually performing tedious synch tests, but he had never felt quite so self-conscious. Their strange new pluguits left very little to the imagination, and he didn't even have the benefit of a strip across his chest like Asuka did. The transparent material gave a clear, white-tinted view of his torso all the way to his lower belly. He didn't know what to do with his hands. He had settled for clasping them together in front of him, instinctively trying to cover as much of himself as possible.

Asuka sighed, and kicked back on the side of the plug next to him. If anything, the transparent orange segment of her suit was slung even lower and only a slightly raised lip above her pubic region maintained her modesty. When she closed her legs the seams along the sides of her crotch became clearly visible, and because of the color it was hard to tell if she had any hair there. Shinji wondered if she had been told to shave.

That thought only added to his raging blush, and the suit grew increasingly uncomfortable between the legs. His face had been warm for so long now he was sure a red hue had been permanently burned into his cheeks.

"I like it when you blush," Asuka said suddenly.

"W-what?" Shinji turned his head to her, careful to look at her face and not the exposed details of her body. It struck him, as it always did when he cared to notice, how pretty she was.

"What?" Asuka sounded indignant. "I can't say I like something about you?"

Shinji stumbled over his words, wondering if she was merely teasing him out of boredom. With Asuka he could never be sure. It was the sort of thing she would do, and just the sort of thing she knew would get a reaction out of him. "No, of course you can. But you don't usually say things like that."

"Yeah, I know," she said, her voice melting into seriousness. Her eyebrows flattened. "Our relationship hasn't been very fair. It seems every time we talk you are the one saying something to make me feel better."

At least he was able to do that for her now, Shinji thought. For the longest time he had simply avoided her, and in doing so had left her to deal with her hurt on her own. He had failed then; failed to understand even the most basic things about her.

"I don't mind," Shinji said, letting his face show his honesty.

Asuka twisted her lips as if tasting something bitter. "That's only because you are too much of a doormat."

Shinji was embarrassed to admit it, but he knew his sheepish, accommodating nature was a poor trait in a boy his age. And certainly not what Asuka wanted to have in a boyfriend. But while she might not like it, Shinji had come to accept that part of himself rather than try to change it.

His skepticism must have shown in his features because Asuka quickly added, "Not to mention the fact that I don't want to date a wimp." Then her voice turned slightly sullen. "Misato will just keep making fun of me."

Shinji felt a hitch inside his chest. "She was just teasing."

He reached out for her hand in that strangely bold manner he'd begun to adopt with her lately. She didn't let him take it, but made no objection as he brushed his fingers gently over her gloved knuckles.

It was her right hand, Shinji realized. The same hand he had once found bloodied and bruised, and which he had then helped mend.

"Don't be stupid." Asuka shook her head. "I know that."

"But it really bothers you."

"It's just annoying." Asuka's manner seemed to lift. She looked at him sharply. "Besides, I can't take her seriously. What does she know? She's still single."

Not by choice, Shinji thought. He didn't want to bring that up now.

"Yeah," he said instead. "I guess you are right."

Asuka made a haughty face. "Of course I'm right. It's me."

Shinji nodded; aware that in doing so he was basically proving her point better than she ever could on her own. Asuka leaned in, sticking out her face in front of his as if to dare him. She raised her left hand and snapped a finger against his forehead.

"Hey!" Shinji rubbed his forehead. "What was that for?"

Asuka opened her mouth, probably to yell at him for giving up so easily, but no words came out. Her brow narrowed in puzzlement. Then, still not saying anything, she suddenly moved away from the test plug and stepped past him.

Shinji couldn't help it as his gaze, attracted by her movements, descended down the smooth curve of her back and over the girly swell of her bottom. As it did in the front, the transparent midsection of her suit rode extremely low in the back. His eyes found the cleft between her firm, perfectly shaped buttocks utterly hypnotizing, the glossy orange color seemingly baiting him like a carrot on a stick. He began to blush again, realizing he was openly ogling her.

"What is she ..." Asuka murmured, her attention fixed intently on the observation window above them.

Thankful that she had failed to notice his indiscretion, Shinji followed her lead and looked up.

The testing chamber was constantly monitored, a fact that always made him slightly uncomfortable. So far neither Maya nor anyone else had contacted them in a while. It was like they had just forgotten about the test they were supposed to be carrying out. Now he saw Maya with her back pressed against the window. She was holding up her hands and shaking her head.

A red mist splattered soundlessly onto the glass. Maya's body slid down.

Shinji didn't understand what he had just seen. The mist began running down the glass in streaks like a liquid. It looked disturbingly like blood.

Blood.

Horror dawned on his young face. He heard Asuka curse, her eyes as wide as his.

A second figure appeared in the window, this one male and covered in black. He didn't have a face, just a helmet, goggles and a mask. And he was aiming a rifle at the window.

"Idiot, get down!"

Shinji barely had time to blink as Asuka grabbed his wrist and pulled him down behind the entry-plug test tube directly across from them. She wasn't fast enough. Stumbling forward, Shinji saw the muzzle flashes and the rifle sweeping across the window, leaving what looked like crystalline spiderwebs as the thick armored glass stopped the bullets. Then he was next to her, crumpled underneath the side of the test tube.

"M-Maya ..." he gasped, clutching his chest and sitting up, his back against the metal. "They … they ..."

"They shot her!" Asuka yelled, her face furious. "What the hell is going on? Who are those people?"

He didn't know. He tried to tell her, but his breath was suddenly gone and he couldn't speak. He shook his head agitatedly. Someone he knew had just been shot right in front of him. Someone he knew had just been murdered.

Asuka peered over the edge of the entry-plug, careful not to remove too much of herself from its protective cover. Shinji didn't follow. He had his hands fulls trying not to have a panic attack. His breath was gone, and cold fear closed in on him. Maya had been shot, and it almost didn't seem to matter why because whoever had done it was probably coming for the two of them as well.

A second ago he had been just a boy looking at a girl he liked, now …

"Come on!" Asuka had taken his wrist again, her grip so tight it hurt. She pulled him up, yanking him by the arm, and they rushed to the test chamber door.

Shinji couldn't think. It was all happening too quickly. He stood there shaking his head as Asuka frantically tried to get the door open, typing numbers on the keypad. Failing, she slammed her hand down on it. "Open, you piece of shit!"

Nothing happened. The door remained shut.

Shinji caught movement up behind the shattered, blood-stained window. Almost absently, he turned his head and saw the black shadows moving through the room above. He couldn't tell how many, but many more than the just the one who had shot Maya. They were coming. Despair and anger and helplessness all seemed to blossom at once in his chest.

"It's locked!" Asuka cried. She spun around, her long golden-red hair flaring up wildly about her, her eyes searching desperately for another way out. "There!"

His plugsuited feet moved so quickly behind hers that he almost tripped. He struggled to keep up with her. She finally dropped him on the floor next to what looked like a vent grate, then got on her knees and began running her gloved fingers along the edges of the grate.

He stared at her, and suddenly found tears building up in his eyes.

The look she shot his way was pure, unbridled disgust, and it was followed by the sting of her hand striking his cheek, hard.

"Don't you dare, dammit!" Asuka yelled, showing her teeth. But her voice trembled—the first sign of panic. "You are not a child! You are an Eva pilot! Act like one!"

Hearing those words, seeing her face seemed to snap him out of his shock. She was afraid, too, but she was trying to use that fear to drive her actions, fueling her desire to survive. Whatever was happening, Asuka was determined that their lives wouldn't end here. She would get out. And she was prepared to drag him with her if she had to. But she wasn't prepared to lose him because he was scared. That, he realized, terrified her more than being shot at.

Shinji wiped a glossy blue forearm over his eyes. His unshed tears rubbed off, taking with them the paralyzing fear that had numbed him for the last few minutes—or seconds, everything was happening too fast to know. For the first time he seemed to catch his breath.

"You back with me?" Asuka asked, her tone skirting the edge between exasperation and relief.

He nodded almost sheepishly.

"Good. I was prepared to keep slapping you." She returned to the grate, but was it already apparent that even her slender fingers wouldn't be able pry it open. Shinji joined in and ran his fingers all along the edge of the metal, working quickly and trying to somehow grip the grate to pull it out. It wouldn't budge.

There was a loud bang at the door. Two teenage heads, one brown and one golden-red, turned in that direction for a heartbeat.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Desperate, Asuka began clawing at the grate. When that failed, she slipped her fingers into the slits, planted her foot on the wall besides her and pulled, her slender body contorting from the effort. Shinji did the same, wrapping his fingers around the slats and throwing his weight back, pulling. The flat metal bit into his fingers. It hurt.

"It's not moving!" he yelled through clenched teeth, eyes growing watery from the effort.

"I'm not dying here!" Asuka half grunted and half screamed, pulling with all her strength. It wouldn't give. Not even an inch.

They weren't strong enough.

And then something snapped, and Shinji went flying backward, slamming his head on the floor. Asuka grunted, followed by the sound of clashing metal. She landed hard on her butt next to him. Shinji rolled to his side, rubbing his head where he had hit it, so close to Asuka he could count the many beads of sweat that had formed on her skin through the transparent part of her suit.

"Come on." Asuka was on her hands and knees before Shinji even realized the vent was now opened, a black tunnel into the unknown. The position was obscene in the half-transparent suit; apparently whoever designed it had never intended for the wearer to have to bend over, let alone crawl into a vent. Asuka's bottom glimmered like two bright oranges squeezed together. "Let's go!"

Shinji knew he would look just as bad, but this was no time for self-consciousness. He crawled into the vent behind her, trying to avoid stuffing his nose between her cheeks. It was incredibly tight, barely enough room for the two of them to squeeze in. Less than a few feet inside, a huge explosion rang in the chamber behind them, strong enough to throw them both into the walls of the vent and reverberating all around them.

The pain in his ears was excruciating. He clamped his hands over them, his head ringing and making him dizzy. As he lay there on his side, he felt Asuka take a hold of him beneath the armpits and drag him along. He heard her voice, but it sounded weird and distant even though she was right there.

But she was there.

Almost as soon as she managed to drag him around a corner, he heard deafening gunfire pouring in from the vent opening. The flashes lit up the darkness. Asuka screamed, a horrible screeching sound. She held him tightly. He held her back.

* * *

**Second Movement:**

* * *

Gunfire and screaming. Junichi Nakayima didn't need to know any more. Something bad was happening, and it was happening right down the hall. There was no time to wait or think, and there was no time to guess. He had to act. Ignoring the horrified look and both Miko and Keiko's faces, he grabbed the blonde by the arm. "Under the bed, now."

"W-what?" Miko stared at him as if he had gone insane, and though he knew it was out of fear he couldn't help resenting her for it.

"Under the bed, Miko!" he repeated in a hard voice. "Now!"

More screaming down the hall. Another round of gunfire. There were no instructions being shouted, no directions or requests to comply. Whatever was happening out there was a massacre. Nakayima took Keiko by the arm, her eyes wide and questioning. He felt his heart break as he seized her wrist and pulled out the IV needle, making the poor girl cry out in pain.

"I'm sorry." He slid his arms under her, between her back and the bed and around her knees. Keiko immediately understood what he wanted to do and tossed her only good arm around his neck, holding tight. As Miko stared at them, Nakayima lifted her off the bed. Keiko cried again, the movement of her broken and badly mauled leg causing her agony. Trapped in its green plastic cast, it stuck in front of her awkwardly as the cast made it impossible to bend her knee. Her face was wracked, her jaw clenched. Still, she held on to him.

His strength fueled by fear, Nakayima found Keiko very light.

"Miko!" he yelled as he dropped to his knees, careful to keep a secure grasp on Keiko's stiff form. He didn't want to think about how much damage this would do to her body. He hoped she forgave him later. If they were still alive.

Miko jerked forwards. She knelt next to Nakayima as he scanned the space under Keiko's hospital bed. There wasn't a lot of room. The mechanism that allowed the bed to recline took up most of the underside. It was a heavy piece of furniture with thick metal beams running across the sides and parallel to the other side, and set up on wheels, which were locked in place. There were two feet between the floor and the bed, enough to squeeze into. Not enough to be of any real help.

But that didn't really matter now. Nakayima already knew they were about to die.

The man he used to be, the man Musashi Kluge had once assigned to spy on Gendo Ikari and who then allowed himself to be shot with his own gun for failing, would have given up. There had been no hope for him back then, and death had an altogether indifferent feel he had become accustomed to. He just didn't care. He cared now.

"Take her," he said, thrusting the girl he was holding into Miko's arms. Keiko cried again as the heel of her cast hit the floor abruptly. Tears poured down her face, and her cheeks had turned an awful shade of red.

Miko wrapped her slender arms around Keiko with incredible, though not unexpected, tenderness. Keiko was, after all, the most important thing in her life. Laying the younger girl down as much as she dared, Miko began crawling under the bed. Nakayima held Keiko's broken leg in his lap, keeping it from scraping on the floor as they moved her. Keiko had her teeth clenched, her whole face twisted in pain, clutching at her gown with her hand. She was stiff as a board, and the gasping, whimpering noises coming from her were enough to make Nakayima cringe.

The phone rang. Nakayima, still on his knees, answered it and spat something at Major Katsuragi. Turning his attention back to the two girls wedged under the bed, he found matching looks of terror on their faces. They were shaking. Miko was crying now, too. Again her arms were tightly wrapped around Keiko, cradling her head against her bosom.

Nakayima did the only reasonable thing a man in his position would do—he lied. "It's going to be alright."

The screaming from the hall had stopped. That could only signal two things in Nakayima's mind: everyone outside the door was dead, and they would be next. He was on his feet in a heartbeat. Sweeping some of Keiko's stuffed toys aside from the top of a cabinet, he dragged it to the door, tilted it forward and jammed the edge under the doorknob.

Heavy footsteps thudded outside. He couldn't get how many assailants there were, but there were clearly several, and they clearly hadn't come to chat. He rushed back to the girls' side, dropped to one knee and pulled out his gun. They were crying hard now, their sobs mixing with one another. He wished he could be down there with them, holding them when it ended.

He took a deep breath, held it, and lined up his gun on the door. Twenty nine millimeter rounds were now all that stood between him and certain death.

The doorknob wouldn't move. There was a thud. Then the door frame shattered, the cabinet went flying and the door slammed open. And then a lot of things happened very fast.

In the split second they were in front of him, Nakayima noticed the three men who had knocked down Keiko's door wore black combat gear from head to foot—helmets, gloves, tactical vests, everything black. They didn't seem human, though they clearly were. Their faces were hidden by balaclavas, eyes shielded by goggles. And they were armed with assault rifles.

Nakayima felt his fingers tense on the trigger. He fired.

One of the soldiers—and Nakayima knew perfectly well that was what they were—turned his head even as the pointman took several bullets in the chest. The barrel of his gun began to follow, and before it could complete its arc his face exploded into a shower of gore. Nakayima only heard the shot after the fact. By then, the pointman was stumbling backwards. The other soldier jerked sideways, almost as if he had been kicked in the shoulder, and crumbled to the floor. The pointman was back in the hallway, smoking holes in his tactical vest, turning his rifle. He fired a single round, collapsing a moment later next to his slain comrades.

The whole horrific spectacle was over in less than three seconds. There was blood all over the floor.

Silence.

No, not really. Keiko was still crying. Wailing actually, the sort of noise only a terrified child could make. Nakayima stared at the open door, waiting. For the longest time nothing happened. Finally, there was a voice.

"Agent Nakayima. It's Kenji. I'm here to help."

Kenji Sakai didn't exist. Or rather, the name didn't. He was part of Fuuka's group, an American commando with a false identity created for him. Nakayima didn't know what he was doing here, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Come in slowly," he said. "The girls are scared."

"Roger that."

Slowly, Kenji appeared around the door, stepping carefully over the bodies of the men he had just killed. He wore NERV's uniform, as did all the undercover members of Fuuka's infiltration squad. His skin was dark, though not so much that it would stand out. His eyes were black and small, his brow furrowed. Slung across his chest was a nasty looking SCAR-H assault rifle.

Nakayima lowered his gun. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you."

"I bet," Kenji said, moving closer, his hands open in a reassuring gesture. "Bastards shot everyone in the east wing. Didn't say a damn thing or ask any questions. They just started shooting the staff. Gave themselves away, though. I think they might have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Looks like someone changed the hallway signs."

Nakayima listened, putting his gun away and helping slide Keiko from under the bed, holding her underneath her armpits. Laying her on the floor, he took one of her pillows and placed her head gently on it. "There," he said, trying to make his voice soothing. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah." Keiko nodded with a wince. By now Miko had crawled out and was holding her leg up. All three of them were on the floor. Kenji had turned his back to point his rifle at the open door.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," Nakayima said to Keiko, looking at the little strings of clear plastic tape that had secured the IV drip to her left wrist.

"You were only trying to help." Keiko smiled weakly at him.

Nakayima could have hugged her … if he didn't think that would cause her even more pain. There was something about this girl that seemed to draw people into liking her. It wasn't just the honesty, or the refusal to blame others even when it might be perfectly justified—to this day she refused to blame the Second Child for leaving her like this after her first and last Eva battle—but something much more abstract.

Ever since she had woken up from her coma to find herself crippled, Keiko had seemed accepting and kind. She put others at ease instead of having them do that for her. Misato Katsuragi had once told him that caring for someone was a burden of responsibility, but Keiko just didn't make it feel that way..

"We should get going," Kenji said. "Fuuka didn't say how many there were, but I've no reason to think they would go after the children with just three people. There's bound to be more."

Miko frowned, lines of worry spreading across her face. "After the children?"

"They were here for Keiko. What else? This is a hospital. The only thing here that can possibly be considered a valuable target worthy of a death squad is an Eva pilot."

"Well, that makes sense," Keiko said, sounding rather serious. "Sort of."

"Keiko!" Miko cried out, but the young brunette shrugged.

"What? I_ am_ an Eva pilot."

Nakayima nodded, feeling a little bit of pride at the unusual assertiveness. Ignoring Miko's sour expression, he turned to Kenji. "You are right. We need to go. I assume this wasn't an isolated incident. NERV security is too tight for attackers to make it this far."

"Roger. I can't give you a detailed sitrep, but from what I know NERV is under attack by the JSSDF. Fuuka and some of the others are converging on one of the test chambers."

"Did she send you?"

"Negative. I was already here. The medical ward was my station. Sorry if I took too long for comfort but I had to wait for them to open up a flank. A dead commando isn't a very good commando."

It was true enough, but Nakayima still wished he hadn't taken so long.

"We can't go," Miko said. "We can't move Keiko like this."

"This is a hospital," Kenji said. "There should be something around here we can use."

Nakayima began to rise, again reaching for his weapon, and moved to the door. He said to Kenji, "I'll go have a look. You stay here with them."

Leading the way with his gun, Nakayima stepped into the long, well-lit hall, paying no attention to the three dead bodies at Keiko's door. They got what they deserved, and he certainly wouldn't feel regret. They hadn't just come for an Eva pilot, they'd come for a wounded little girl of fourteen, who couldn't move or defend herself.

Nakayima was struck by the irony—once, in war, he had been sent after civilians to punish partisan support for insurgent attacks on JSSDF columns. He had followed orders, easily justifying them as a necessity. The results haunted him to this day. Was he really that different from these dead men in black?

A gasp of shock escaped him as the reached the reception area. He stopped in his tracks and stared.

It was just senseless slaughter. There were half a dozen bodies strewn over the floor, most of them the shift nurses that had put so much dedication into caring for Keiko. They lay in pools of blood, glimmering sickly in the bright florescent lights, their white uniforms wrinkled and bloodstained. Some were sprawled on the ground where they had fallen, others sat propped up against the wall as if they had been shoved aside before being shot. One had a trail of blood smeared on the floor behind her. She had tried to crawl to safety.

He had seen horrible things, but this … he was definitely not like the men who had come here and done this.

He scanned the area, looking for anything that might help them move Keiko. Hospitals and ERs usually had emergency supply closets that were readily accessible in case something was needed urgently. He spotted a door behind the watch desk with a silver plaque on it that read 'supplies'. Whatever those might be was completely a guess, but Nakayima crossed the reception at a run, blood splashing as he stepped on the puddles in his haste.

The door was unlocked, thankfully. Nakayima pushed it open and entered a large supply room. The racks ran in rows with numerous shelves in every rack. Everything was labeled, some things with names Nakayima didn't recognize. There were medicines, chemical compounds, defibrillators, syringes, IV supplies, lots and lots of bottles. And, leaning against one of the racks, several green plastic backboards.

Nakayima smiled to himself, grabbed a backboard and ran out. He skidded over a particularly deep blood puddle, and left bloody footprints behind as he returned down the hall to Keiko's room.

They were all right where he left them. He breathed a sigh of relief. He put the gun in his holster, dropped beside Keiko and placed the flat board next to her. Together he and Miko slid the girl on to the board, being careful not to bang her leg against the plastic. The board was designed to be carried. It had handles carved into it for two people to lift either end as well as straps and buckles. They secured Keiko's waist and chest. She fidgeted a little, but gave no sign of real discomfort.

"Just don't drop me, okay," Keiko said. She was kidding, and it was obvious enough that neither Nakayima nor Miko made a reply to reassure her.

"So what's the plan?" Miko asked Kenji.

"We meet up with Fuuka and the others," he said.

Nakayima agreed, because he couldn't come up with anything. He needed more information, and both Fuuka and Major Katsuragi were likely better aware of the situation than him. He was sure that if the JSSDF had launched a major assault on the Geo-front there would have been alarms issued by now.

Nakayima exchanged a glance with Miko. Her cheeks were still red and tear-stained, but a new spark of determination had entered her eyes. They lifted Keiko off the floor, each carrying opposite ends of the backboard. She whimpered at the jolt.

Kenji took the lead, but as they passed through the door he knelt by the first man he had killed, whose face was now mostly missing. He checked the shoulders and chest as if looking for something. "No badges."

"You don't wear any badges," Nakayima pointed out.

"That's the problem." He checked his rifle, shouldered it and headed down the hallway. "Stay behind me."

* * *

In the grim, empty silence, Rei's thoughts carried as an echo far into the seemingly endless black. She stood on a platform, a stage raised from the darkness like a pagan altar. She had been here many times before. Often she felt as though she had been born here.

The white creature on the cross—the 'she' that shared so much of herself—stared down at her mutely, seven eyes carved on its mask. The pale flesh gleamed as though lit by something within. Although it could not speak, it listened and waited.

Rei didn't expect that it would understand. It lacked the experiences she had. It lacked the ability to relate and form these very relationships Rei had come to hold dear. It lacked the same humanity that she, if only by existing in the role of proxy, had achieved. But it had to know.

Human beings had a strange sense of pain. They endured not merely physical pain, but emotional pain as well. The pain of the soul. Even though it had no real interpretation, emotional pain was as hurtful as physical pain. And it bonded humans together. It forced them to acknowledge others; to realize that the bonds they created through life were much more than simple chance meetings.

Rei used to believe that humans created such bonds out of their own selfishness. Out of their fears and their desires. But these bonds almost always seemed to result in pain. Could this be really selfishness? To choose pain for oneself to escape fear? Or was it just the ultimate expression of human kindness?

Humans allowed themselves the luxury of companionship. The bonds they forged, which caused them so much pain, ultimately helped others escape their fears. This was the power of humanity, the power to help each other through suffering. The power to create familiar bonds to help carry them through the hardships in the path to the tree of life. Humans took their strength from each other. From the touch of others. Compassion, love—these things formed the very cores of humanity, the very essence of their pain. Without them humans were no different than the Angels, but with them they were so much stronger.

This was the humans' power to be superior. Humans chose pain because it gave them a validation of reality. It was proof of their life. And the bonds to others ensured that pain was always present, always there to remind them of the things they had, and of those they couldn't hold on to. Humans sought to escape the pain, but as long as they lived, pain remained a tangible thing, because if pain is human, how can there be humans without pain? And how could there ever be humanity without bonds between Man?

Rei narrowed her red eyes and focused on the creature with all her might. The cold that had been tugging at her flesh scurried away.

Why then must Instrumentality be attained? Why must these things be abandoned? Why must pain be banished if it would mark the end of humanity?

Footsteps echoed behind her. Rei had expected him. She did not turn.

"I will not do as you wish," she said, her quiet voice carrying for a long distance in the hollow cavern.

His voice was stern but lacked any sign of anger. "I have suspected as much for a while now. Ever since you started seeing that girl. I think maybe even since my son started opening up to you."

Not many things surprised Rei anymore, but that one did. She turned her head, bringing her red eyes on the man who had, for so long, dominated her life. Commander Ikari stood there with his hands in his pockets, his face the usual hard mask. "Why did you allow it?" she asked him.

He was silent for a moment. "I think a part of me wanted you to see some things for yourself. And perhaps, that same part of me wanted to fail."

She waited, her red eyes showing no emotion, her face blank. There had to be more. Ikari held her gaze. He was so much taller than her, so much bigger. The heavy silence felt like a solid object pressing down on them. Above them the creature with seven eyes watched.

Finally, Ikari gave in. "A man like me is shaped by grief," he said in a flat voice. "I had someone taken from me—the one who became the provider of your genetic material. You are her, even if merely in physical form. I see her face when I look at you."

"Yui Ikari."

His face remained unreadable. Though Rei had never heard him speak like this, there seemed to be nothing that could crack his visage.

"My wife. She sacrificed her life to ensure a better future. Not for mankind, nothing so grand as that. All she wanted was a better future for our son, who she loved most. I envied him. Before she left she entrusted him to me. She told me to care for him. I didn't. I couldn't. Instead, I dedicated my life to bringing her back, and being with her again."

He stopped. His face didn't change. But when he began again there was something hollow in his voice. "In doing so I neglected what was most important to her. I abandoned her child."

Rei felt pity for a loss so great he would define the rest of his life by it. But not so much that she forgot who this man was. The second Rei Ayanami he had at least shown some affection for, but the only person he had treated worse than herself was Shinji. And though the Third Child had told her he didn't think of the Commander as his father, Rei believed even their estrangement failed to sever the familial bond that existed between them.

Once, the Third and Second Children had hurt each other. Now they were together. Once Rei had felt like an empty shell whose only purpose was to do the bidding of others. She had learned.

Humans had the ability to mend broken connections among them, changing themselves and the world in the process. So long as the bond that held people together—the desire to understand one another—remained, there was hope. Perhaps even for Gendo Ikari.

"He is your child as well," Rei said.

If he had been a statue he could have hardly been able to remain more stoic.

"I do not deserve the honor of being called Father. Even when I knew how much pain he was in, I could never bring myself to do anything for him. My life is pain. Why should his be any different? I did not think he would find happiness in this world. It seemed impossible to me. And then he did. He proved me wrong. Everything was so clear until then."

More silence. Rei waited. The creature behind them watched.

"But Fate, it seems, is full of irony," Ikari finally said. "Time was never something we had in abundance. It has finally run out. Our enemies are closing around us. Soon it will be over."

Rei could feel them, like frayed strands at the edge of her consciousness. There was no sense of a physical presence, just movement rising inside her mind. She couldn't tell who they were or what they wanted, but she knew they were there. And then she felt something else: a black void, nothingness coming towards her.

She looked back towards the creature on the cross.

Ikari answered the unspoken question. "I made many mistakes, and now there is no time to fix them. Whatever you feel about me, whether you hate me, you must do what is right by Shinji. You have to preserve his happiness. Only you can. Because I have made it so."

A dull ache sprang up in Rei's chest, and she wondered if he was trying to manipulate her. He must have known of her feelings for Shinji. But would he use them to force her into doing what he wanted? Would he be that heartless? That selfish? Had she, in understanding the nature of her bonds to others, projected that nature into him?

"I understand your hesitation," Ikari said. "I have seen you with that girl. She will die as well, and whatever it is you feel for her will be lost. But there is a way to prevent it. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. That is the purpose of Instrumentality. Your feelings can endure in the hearts of others, and theirs in yours. It is not death but completeness."

In those words Rei found the confirmation of her fears, and the true reason he had allowed her to become close to Keiko and Shinji.

"You used them," Rei said. "Like you are using me."

Ikari nodded. "I used everyone. Despite a lifetime of care, your predecessor sacrificed herself to save Shinji. I knew then that while I could control your life, I could not control your heart. There are too many variables. But I have expected this day for a long time, and I knew the choice you would face—the one I would give you. A different beginning or a complete, irreversible end. And your heart will not allow you to choose death for the ones you care about."

"That is still control."

"Perhaps it was. I cannot deny my intentions. But if I truly wished to manipulate you, would I have told you this? No, we both know I would have lied. I made this happen through my selfishness, but the truth is that I don't want Shinji to suffer. I don't want him to die."

Rei pressed her lips together, and thought of only one question. "Do you love him?"

"I ..." he didn't say it, but his lips mouthed the words.

Rei dipped her head, just the slightest of nods. She didn't know why she had expected a different answer.

And then the ache inside her chest exploded into agony. Rei cried out, clamping a hand over her chest as her knees buckled and she fell to the ground. She heard Ikari call her name, but she was no longer in the cavernous chamber. Her mind flashed, and for an instant she saw herself standing in the ocean of LCL, a dead tree behind her.

She remembered this—her first experience inside Unit-00. The LCL lapped at her knees, before turning impossibly cold, spending spikes like frozen needles into her skin. She screamed again inside her own head. Hands reached out to her and pulled her down. She was sinking into the endless liquid void, the world vanishing above her like a mirage, rippling in the waves. Soon there was only blackness around her, and …

Nothingness.

Her eyes shot open, her own desperate gasp filling her ears. She lay on the floor, shaking, Ikari kneeling beside her with a worried look on his face. Even in this state, Rei realized it was not concern for her safety. She was nothing more to him than a tool. He didn't care. His head turned away, and Rei felt a draft of cold air that indicated a door had been opened.

She heard heavy footsteps rushing on both sides of them. Her senses screaming, she looked and saw a narrow beam of light along the far wall and shapes moving in the dark. They were surrounded, guns bristling around them from all sides.

Among those who had entered the chamber, Rei recognized Dr. Akagi, her blonde hair gleaming a pale yellow from the light filtering through the open door behind her. She stood next to an old man with white hair and wrinkled features whom she had never seen before. And the third figure, short and slender despite the combat gear he carried …

She couldn't see his face, but it was to him that her pained gaze was drawn. He was like an open wound between her ribs, as black and empty on the inside as the feeling of sinking into that LCL ocean in her nightmare.

"Ritsuko," Ikari said, his voice still flat and cold. He rose, returning his hands to his pockets. "I hope you do not expect me to be surprised."

The blonde doctor grimaced dangerously. "I have no such luck," she spat. "But if it means anything to you, he didn't even have to offer thirty pieces of silver."

Ikari turned his head to the old man. "Chief Kluge, we finally meet."

"For the last time, I am sure."

But none of them knew—none of them felt what Rei felt. She pushed herself up on her arms, the pain in her head nearly making her sick. She didn't take her red eyes off the anonymous soldier. And through the shaded plastic of his goggles, she knew he was watching her.

* * *

Her sidearm clutched tightly in her hands, Misato ran the final meters of hallway, her footsteps thudding loudly. But as she came into view of the testing chamber's observation room the grim reality settled into her stomach like a stone. The sliding door which would have normally glided aside to grant entrance had been blow open. The smell of smoke and burning electronics wafted through the door.

Acting on training, Misato pressed her back against the wall immediately next to the door. Fuuka, donning a combination of NERV's tan uniform and military equipment—a mottled urban camouflage tactical vest, elbow and knee pads and a state-of-the-art visor attached to a computer carried in a pack on her back—followed in behind her. The three other American operators, also clad in a combination of uniforms, stacked on the opposite side of the door. All of them carried SCAR battle rifles.

The Americans had joined her on the way, rushing to her side at a dead run. Had they been predators, they would have been cheetahs running after a wounded gazelle. But they weren't predators; they were protectors.

But they might be too late to protect anyone.

Misato hadn't dared to think about what she would find. The possibility that she might have already lost the children was simply too daunting and terrifying to consider. But as she stood there by the blown door, not knowing what had happened or was about to happen, her fears took over. She squeezed her eyes shut and uttered a silent prayer.

Fuuka patted her shoulder, and with a nod from Misato's head gave a hand sign to her fellows. The three Americans went in, guns at the ready, their faces unreadable, frozen solid with determination. A second went by, no guns were fired. Then someone called out, "Clear."

It was followed a moment later by, "We have casualties."

Misato felt her stomach drop. She moved around the door frame, her eyes quickly scanning the room. Rows of computer terminals were arranged in parallel lines running from one side of the room to another, some having been shot through and throwing sparks from burned electronics. A large rectangular window opened into the testing chamber containing the simulation entry-plugs below. The thick armored glass was shattered in half a dozen places with the distinctive spiderweb pattern of bullet impacts.

A pair of NERV technicians lay dead, neither of which Misato could recognize, their bodies pierced by by two bleeding wounds. But as she moved through the rows of consoles, Misato saw someone she did recognize.

Slumped back against a terminal right beneath a huge blood splatter on the window was the willowy form of Maya Ibuki. Her uniform was soaked with blood, and there was even more blood below her. An American, a female operator named Hanako, was kneeling besides her, frantically removing first aid supplies from a kit in her backpack and pleading with Maya to stay with her.

Maya was still alive.

Misato rushed to the fallen technician, fighting the urge to cry out her name. Behind her, Fuuka began issuing orders to the rest of her team to secure the test chamber and search for the children.

Maya looked up as Misato dropped to her knees across from Hanako. Her eyes were dull, her face very pale. She had her hand pressed against her stomach, trails of red liquid seeping out between her fingers as she breathed.

"M-Major …" the young technician croaked, "p-please …"

"It's going to be okay," Misato said, trying to make her voice as reassuring as she could. She looked at Hanako, who was now struggling to remove Maya's hand from her wound and press a bandage against it at the same time. "These people are going to help you."

Maya shook her head heavily. "No … you don't understand. D-Doctor Akagi doesn't know … "

Misato bit her lip. She didn't want to say anything about Ritsuko. Maya idolized her—the very same woman Misato was sure had set this in plan motion, who was even now, as they tried to save her former protégé, responsible for the JSSDF invading the Geo-Front. If Maya was as badly hurt as she seemed, that might be enough to send her into shock.

Maya took a deep breath. It sounded ragged. Her body jerked back and she coughed up blood. Hanako had finished securing the bandage around her wound and was cutting up her uniform trying to get a better look at the wound. Misato knew without asking that there wasn't much she could do.

Misato put her gun aside and took Maya's hand. "It's okay, Maya. I'm here."

The next time Maya spoke her voice was nearly unrecognizable. "Ri-Ritsuko doesn't know. She thinks they … they are here for the Commander. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. The children … I locked the door. All I could do."

Misato frowned despite herself. "Maya, do you know what Ritsuko is up to?"

Maya nodded. "We …" she wheezed. Blood poured down her chin. "My stomach … hurts ..."

Misato looked pleadingly at Hanako. The young black-haired soldier was already retrieving a morphine syringe. She gave Maya a shot. "It's as much as I can help. She was shot in the stomach. She'll bleed out no matter what we do."

Misato had already suspected as much, but it didn't make the truth any easier to hear. Stomach wounds were slow, painful deaths. She gave Maya a pitying expression. No tears came to her eyes despite the fact that she felt like crying. It would solve nothing now. "I'm sorry."

Again Maya shook her head. Her face was white as a sheet. "You … trusted me," she managed somehow. "You trusted me. Even when I didn't deserve it. I … was so afraid." She closed her eyes. "I … I'm sorry, Major. I thought it would save everyone. I am … so stupid."

"Don't say that." Misato squeezed her hand. "Please don't say that. I trust you because I know you are kind and care about others."

Maya opened her eyes again, but Misato couldn't meet them.

"I made a mistake." Maya tried to squeeze back. Her grip was weak, practically not there at all. "Rit-Ritsuko doesn't know. She thinks he's here for the Commander, but Kluge … will kill her … kill everyone. I'm sorry … "

Those words had barely left her bloodied lips when Maya's hand went limp. And slowly, almost gently, she faded away, her still-open eyes staring emptily at Misato.

"Don't be sorry," Misato whispered uselessly. "I forgive you."

Hanako moved back, wiping her hands on her uniform, leaving blood smears everywhere she touched. She remained respectfully silent as Misato reached out and closed Maya's unseeing eyes. The ache of loss, something Misato hadn't experienced since Kaji, returned to her like an old friend. But she couldn't dwell on it. Asuka and Shinji still depended on her. There would be time to properly grieve for Maya later.

The two operators Fuuka had sent ahead returned. Fuuka had stayed back, hovering near the open door at the back of the room to give Misato and Hanako space. Misato thought she must have known as soon as she saw Maya's wound that she would die, and didn't wish to intrude on those final moments.

"They breached the test chamber with explosive charges," one of the operators reported, and pointed towards the bullet-riddled observation window. "The door seems to have been electronically locked. My guess is they couldn't get through the glass either. The children aren't here. Looks like they escaped through a ventilation access."

Fuuka nodded, waited a second, then approached Misato. "We should head for the Eva cages. It's the most logical place for the pilots to go."

Misato agreed, and that was a very bad thing. By himself Shinji could have been trusted to do the reasonable thing and find a safe place to hide. But he was with Asuka, and she was an Eva pilot to a fault; as predictable as she could be reckless. There would be nowhere else she'd want to head for at a time like this than her Eva. Unfortunately for the both of them, that might get them killed before they ever had a chance.

"No." Misato watched as Hanako gently lowered Maya's body to the floor. "We need to find them before they get to the cages."

Fuuka looked puzzled. "It doesn't make sense for us to go looking for them when we know where they have to be. Without their Evas, the pilots are just harmless children."

Misato removed her red jacket and draped it over Maya. She turned a hard glance towards Fuuka. "And I guarantee you the assholes who did this know that as well. The JSSDF wants to keep us from launching the Evas. They know it's the only advantage we have."

Understanding finally dawned on Fuuka's face, and she nodded. "You are thinking they'll just wait for the children to show up at the cages. Set up an ambush." As she turned back to the other two operators she tapped the side of her visor. The clear plastic turned a blue-green hue and glowed as if lit up from within. "Spread out and move ahead. Radio if you meet resistance. Do not engage on your own."

Misato got up as the two Americans rushed off, their gear clanging down the hall. She looked again at Maya. Hanako was still on her knees, keeping her head down. Her expression was hard to read.

"I won't let it end like this," Fuuka said. "I lost a pilot already. I won't lose any more."

* * *

Asuka was forced to kick the vent grate nearly a dozen times before it gave. That she had somehow managed to turn herself around in the confined space was a testament to her slender frame and flexibility. Had he been on his own, Shinji doubted very much he could have done so.

Had he been on his own, Shinji told himself ruefully, he would have likely been dead by now.

His ears were still ringing badly, and all sounds, particularly sharp ones, seemed muted and distant. He had no idea how long they had spent crawling in the vent on their hands and knees. He didn't understand what was happening—why Maya had been shot, why there were soldiers coming after them. Asuka had to drag him away. Then there was an explosion inside the vent, and the heat and pressure wave was more than enough to rupture at least one of his eardrums. He didn't know if Asuka was hurt; he hadn't said anything to her for a while.

He felt ashamed. Being an Eva pilot had constantly placed him in danger. But at least in those battles he had Unit-01 with him, and often also Asuka and Rei. He had never been shot at in the flesh, and the resulting fear and shock had rendered him all but useless.

Even now, it was Asuka moving them along, scrambling quickly out of the vent. Shinji wanted to stay there. He was only dead weight to her.

Then she reached back, took his hand and pulled him out into a narrow, brightly lit hallway. Shinji tried to stand, but his knees gave in and he collapsed over Asuka's legs and they hit the floor together. Asuka did not immediately try to get up. She lay on her back, his head of badly tousled brown hair nestled in her lap, and pressed the transparent palms of her test suit against her face.

And Shinji thought that she might cry. Afraid, angry—mostly at himself—and in pain, he pushed off her and sat on the floor. "Are you okay?" he asked, his own voice weird and muted.

Asuka moved her hands away and sat. She shook her head and began rubbing her ears. "Everything sounds weird."

Shinji swallowed. His ears popped. It hurt badly. Listening to her voice he realized that it wasn't just that his hearing had diminished—he couldn't hear anything at all on his right side. His left ear had been pressed against Asuka at the time of the explosion. It seemed that had saved it. "What happened?"

"They dropped a grenade in the vent, probably."

"Why?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Asuka barked, her face suddenly furious. "Did you see them explain themselves to me before they started shooting? No! Someone was trying to kill us—that's all I need to know!"

She tried to stand, leaning heavily against the wall. Her knees were turned inwards, patches of sweat visible in the suit's clear orange torso. Shinji could see her stomach muscles clench and release, her barely covered chest rise as she struggled to control her breathing. Finally, she pushed off and stepped, still somewhat unsteadily, down the hall.

"Where are you going?" Shinji asked, trying to stand himself, putting his hands against the wall as the entire hall seemed to suddenly spin around him. His balance was gone, and he guessed that meant damage to his inner ear. He hoped it wouldn't be anything permanent.

"Where do you think?" Asuka said sharply, as if the answer were so obvious he shouldn't even ask. "My Eva."

Shinji followed her, his feet moving awkwardly, rubbing his still-ringing head. "But …"

Asuka rounded on him, hair whipping around her. She stumbled at the sudden movement, but didn't falter. "What?"

"These aren't Angels."

She glared at him as though he had said something awful about her mother, baring her teeth at him. Shinji shrunk back. He clutched his hands protectively against his chest and dropped his head. He didn't want to make her angry, but he also didn't understand what use their Evas would have if they weren't fighting Angels. If anything, they should be trying to find Misato.

"Are you kidding me?" Asuka finally yelled. "We are being attacked—what difference does it make if there aren't any Angels? We are Eva pilots. What else do you think we should do?"

"Misato—"

Asuka didn't even bother hearing him out. "Weren't you paying attention? They shot Maya. They tried to kill us. What makes you think they didn't already kill Misato?"

That was the worst thing she could possibly have said. Shinji felt a hand close around his heart and squeeze hard, making him whimper. He stepped back from Asuka, as if somehow that distance could change the fact that, for all he knew, she was right, and Misato, someone who had become as good as a second mother to him, was already dead.

The warm place in his chest reserved for Misato felt suddenly hollow. He couldn't deal with losing someone like her. Not again.

Asuka sighed, her red-clad shoulders rising and falling. She came back and took his hand, letting her fingers knot between his like they had done a hundred times now. He didn't flinch from her touch, so accustomed to it he had become.

Shinji looked up hesitantly, and found not the cold anger of a second before, but that kind of soft sincerity only Asuka's bright blue eyes seemed capable of.

"I shouldn't have said that," she murmured. "But I'm sure Misato would want us to be safe, and there's no safer place to be than our Evas." She forced a smile. "You wouldn't let me go alone, would you?"

She was right on all accounts—Misato, wherever she was, would want them to be safe, their Evas were the safest place, and there was no way he'd let Asuka go alone. He shook his head, answering her question without any need for words.

"Okay," Asuka said. "We go together."

Still holding his hand, Asuka led him down the hall. As they walked Shinji's sense of balance slowly began to return. The hearing on his right side did not. There was an insistent ringing inside his head, and he could feel a distinct throbbing. Asuka's own steps became more and more certain, her stride opening wider and more hurried.. Her urgency was justified, but Shinji wished she would slow down for him.

The hallway opened up at an intersection. Asuka turned her head left and right. There weren't any signs. "Um..." Her eyes flicked inquisitively to Shinji. "Any chance you know the way?"

"No." He wasn't even sure where they were now, let alone how to get to the Eva cages from here. The vent seemed to have led them to one of the maintenance areas, away from the main transit point which would have, at the very least, displayed some signing.

"Great."

She went left, marching with purpose down another narrow hallway as Shinji pattered along behind her, looking down at the floor. They rounded a corner … and Shinji slammed into Asuka's back as she came to a sudden stop.

Asuka squeaked as her slender body was squeezed between Shinji and something hard. Shinji bounced back, stumbled and landed on his rear with a thud. Then Asuka screamed.

"RUN!"

Dazed, Shinji looked up from the floor and stared in terror as a man carrying a rifle stepped around the corner. Half a heartbeat later he saw Asuka, a blur of golden-red hair and shiny red plugsuit, throw herself at the man's midsection. Caught by surprise, he stumbled back. But he didn't fall. Asuka planted her left foot on the floor and spun on her heel into a kick. The man grabbed her by the ankle as her right foot connected with his gut, protected by what looked like a bulletproof vest. He lurched forward, sweeping Asuka's other foot from under her.

Falling, Asuka grabbed him by the collar, pulling him to her as she drove her knee up right between his legs so brutally even Shinji winced. He cried out in pain and fell with her—on top of her, pinning her shoulders down with his hands, face twisted in pain but still in the fight.

Asuka was punching and kicking wildly as the man struggled to capture her wrists in his much larger hands. "Get off me, you fuck! I'll kill you!"

"Stop!" the man panted. "I'm not going to hurt you!"

"Liar!" Asuka spat, punching him repeatedly in the face, writhing underneath him, trying to get free. "We saw you kill one of our friends!"

But it was only then that Shinji noticed this man, unlike those who had shot Maya, was not wearing black. He had on an odd mixture of NERV's tan uniform and white-black combat gear. His nose and mouth bleeding, he managed to grab Asuka's right wrist, made much bulkier than normal by the suit's mechanism, without resorting to hitting her.

"Let go!" Asuka continued struggling, kicking and screaming. Yet for all her fury she was still just a teenage girl, much smaller and lighter than her opponent.

"Calm down first." The man cautiously brought his knee up and used it to pin Asuka's other arm by the elbow. He was now practically straddling her chest as her long legs kicked uselessly under him. "You aren't going anywhere."

"You freak!" Asuka screamed at the top of her voice. "I'm fourteen! You can't just have your way with me!"

The man seemed genuinely shocked. His grip slackened.

That was all Asuka needed. She wrenched her wrist free and swung her fist like a hammer. The blow landed squarely on the surprised man's jaw, snapping his head back violently. Asuka punched him again, snarling like a wild beast. Shinji heard the crunch of bone.

"Asuka, stop. He's a friend!"

Even with his damaged hearing Shinji recognized Misato's voice. Still exactly where he had fallen when the fight began, he whipped his head around and found his guardian running towards them. She was accompanied by three others, all of them clad in a mixture of military gear and NERV uniforms. And even though she was wearing some sort of blue-green goggles, he also recognized Fuuka's round brown eyes. She waved at him.

Asuka, too, had turned her head, the enraged expression quickly shifting into open confusion. She saw Misato, recognized Fuuka and what she was wearing, and put two and two together.

"I can explain!" she piped up indignantly, as if the act of being found beating the hell out of a grown man sitting on top of her were just like getting caught stealing Misato's makeup. "I, um, well …"

But Misato didn't care about explanations. She slid next to Shinji and pulled him into a hug. "Thank God you are okay."

He hugged her tightly, pressing his head against her chest, and for that moment they could have been a mother and son. By the time they separated Asuka had crawled out from under her bloodied would-be attacker, who sat back and wiped a tan sleeve over his obviously broken nose. His whole face was a mess. In contrast, Asuka had some blood on her—not her own—and her breathing was labored, but she was no worse for wear. It was probably not by accident.

Too shocked to do much of anything else, Asuka looked bewildered at the other NERV personnel gathered around her, some of whom seemed impressed. But as Misato made to hug her, she came back to her senses and pushed her off. "What the hell?"

"It's okay," Misato said. "They're friends."

Asuka turned to the man she had been fighting, now being tended to by a black-haired female with kindly features. She kicked at him. "Idiot. You could have told me that!"

"I tried to," he replied as the black-haired girl stuffed a wad of cotton into his right nostril. "But you were too busy beating the hell out of me. My name's Saburo, by the way."

"Serves you right!" Asuka howled, getting up and setting her hands on her hips in that confident posture she so liked to make. "Misato's friend or not, I don't care. How dare you get on top of me like I'm some filthy love doll!"

He grinned. "That outfit would fool anyone."

Asuka's face began to color a very intense, yet oddly attractive shade of red. Her voice rose to an ear-splitting shrill. "Pervert! I was trying to distract you before, but you really are a pervert! You are worse even than the idiot. Why can't I ever be surrounded by honorable men? Disgusting!"

Of those present, only Shinji and Misato had perfected the art of tuning Asuka out. As everyone else tried to simultaneously restrain and calm the fiery redhead, Misato helped him up.

"We saw Maya get shot and … " he started, but her sorrowful expression quickly stopped him. He didn't need to ask, and she didn't need to tell him.

"I'm just glad you are okay," Misato said, patting his head.

Shinji nodded quietly, seeing no need to dampen her relief by telling her about his hearing. He would live, Maya wouldn't; to complain about something so trivial seemed selfish and pathetic by comparison.

Asuka returned to his side, fuming and folding her arms. "Who are these losers, anyway?" she asked Misato with a suspicious look. "I didn't know technicians were allowed to have military gear around."

"Asuka, they're trying to help." Misato's voice was lightly scolding. "Be nice."

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

Fuuka stepped next to Misato. She tapped the side of her visor, which shifted from blue-green to completely clear. "I think we should share some information with you guys," she said. "Can you walk and talk?"

Shinji and Asuka listened as Misato and the others led the way to the cages. NERV was under attack from the JSSDF and, in an apparent attempt to prevent them from launching the Evas, they had decided to go after the children. He was afraid at being the target of such an assault, but even that failed to equal the sense of betrayal he felt at being told that Fuuka, and Misato herself, had lied to him.

Fuuka wasn't who he had thought—whom she had presented herself as. And while she hadn't overtly done anything to earn his trust, Shinji had certainly thought he could trust her. He had thought she was a good person, despite being a little odd. Now he wasn't sure she meant any of the things she said; he didn't know what her motives really were. How could he trust a foreign commando, likely no different from those soldiers who had just tried to hurt them?

The more Fuuka and Misato explained, the less Shinji felt like he wanted to be walking around with them. Asuka, on the other hand, seemed increasingly impressed. But when she asked for a gun, Fuuka flatly refused.

The hallway emerged into a small open storage area holding different kinds of equipment Shinji couldn't identify. Judging by the signing on the walls, they were very close to the cages. A second hallway branched off to the right, under a label 'Main Cage Access Number 7'. They crossed the area as a group, with the Americans moving in formation in front of them, sweeping left and right with their rifles. They had barely made it to the hall entrance when they began to hear gunfire, distinct even to Shinji's mangled hearing.

"Possible contacts in the cages," Saburo called out. "Sounds like incoming fire as well."

"Someone's putting up a fight." Fuuka made a gesture with her arm, and the three Americans moved forward, holding up their rifles, aiming them down the last sections of hallway which ended in a heavy bolted door that was partially open.

Even to Shinji, whose experience of battle was limited to fighting in his Eva, it was clear there was an all out firefight taking place on the other side of the door. It sounded like a small war had suddenly started.

As the Americans moved up, running at a half crouch along the wall, Misato stayed back with Asuka and Shinji. She dropped to a knee and gestured for the teens to do the same. They huddled close together, putting a corner between themselves and the advancing Americans.

"Stay here," Misato said, reaching for her gun. Without her customary red jacket, her holster was in plain view.

Asuka bristled angrily. "But I want to fight!"

Misato shook her head. "I don't know what's happening up there, but these people are here for the pilots. They are afraid of what you can do. But that's only once you are in your Eva. And they know that. You'd be walking right into their hands."

It had all happened very quickly, but hearing the worried tone in her voice made Shinji remember there were more than two pilots, even if there were just two functional Eva units. He had forgotten. "Misato, what about Rei?"

Misato hesitated, and he knew with a heavy heart that she hadn't thought about the blue-haired girl. "I'm sure Rei can look after herself."

She was trying to put him at ease, merely telling him what he wanted to hear. Shinji had become very good at seeing through Asuka's facade; Misato was an amateur compared to her. He didn't believe she cared about Rei, or at least not in the same way she did about him and Asuka. There was concern, of course, but it wasn't the same as caring.

There were so many things he felt were wrong with this situation—Asuka dragging him along because he couldn't stand up for himself, not wanting to talk about Maya despite having her shot right in front of him, and now Rei …

"I don't want anyone else to get hurt," Shinji said, surprised at how sullen he seemed. He lowered his head.

Misato placed a hand over his shoulder. "I know you don't," she said. "But you are alive, aren't you? And as long as you are alive you can do something for the ones you care about." She nodded at Asuka. "Isn't that right?"

The redhead turned up her nose, looking annoyed.

Misato smiled kindly at her and turned her head back to Shinji. "It's alright to be scared for others. That says a lot about the kind of person you are. And I know Rei is very important to you, but right now the best thing you can do is focus on piloting your Eva. It's the only hope any of us have."

Shinji was already shaking his head. Misato didn't understand why he had piloted Eva in the first place—that it had been about wanting to earn his father's affection and recognition. She would be disappointed in him, but that was the truth.

"I can't tell you what to do anymore," Misato said. Holding her gun in one hand, she brushed his cheek with the other in that maternal way she had taken up recently. "You are a grown man. You have to make your own decisions. I'm just your friend, and I want to protect you. Like you've protected me ever since that first day we met. Please, let me do that. We'll sort everything else out later. Okay?"

Finally, Shinji nodded. He wasn't even sure what he was agreeing to. What else could he do?

"Just stay here." Misato repeated, then tapped Asuka's shoulder. "Asuka, I'm serious about this."

The look that came over Asuka's face was pure resentment, more than being denied a chance to fight would account for. She held back whatever reply she wanted to make and just nodded. Misato seemed to understand something about her Shinji didn't, and with a promise that she would return shortly, trotted around the corner.

When she was gone, Shinji sat next to Asuka along the wall. He didn't say anything—even if he wanted to, he had no idea what it would be.

"I hate this," Asuka murmured, bringing up her knees slightly.

Shinji did too.

He thought of Rei again. What was she going through right now? Was she safe? He had Misato and Asuka by his side, to simply be with him, but who did Rei have? Was she, as she had always seemed, alone?

The sounds of battle intensified down the hall. Orders were shouted, but became unintelligible in the din. Random words could be picked up in the lull between gunfire. Smoke began filling the hall. There were explosions, screams. The noise seemed to echo off the walls, bringing it much closer, reverberating through Shinji's body until he felt like he was shaking.

It was too much. He put up his knees, buried his face behind them and closed his eyes. The shooting continued in the darkness of his mind; the killing and the dying—people he knew, people he cared about. And he couldn't help wonder how many of them would be left alive at the end of the day.

* * *

Feeling sick, Rei got on her feet. All around her, like thorns in a thicket, rifle barrels shifted in her direction. To her right, Gendo Ikari showed only slight interest in her. Most of his attention remained on the three people in front of him.

"You should get it over with," he said calmly.

Ritsuko stepped forward, her face clenched in anger. Her green eyes bristled with hatred. "Bastard! You don't even care to know why?"

"No."

The answer only seemed to make the doctor more upset. Although Rei had spent a lot of time with her, she had never been able to understand Ritsuko Akagi. She had felt the anger and hatred now directed towards the Commander, since it had often been directed at herself as well. But it had always seemed irrational, a holdover from emotions Ritsuko didn't care to share.

"It didn't have to end like this," Ritsuko whispered, reaching into her coat pocket. "But I guess at some point it had to end. Better that it should be by my hand."

The Commander grinned. "If that is what you believe, then you are truly stupid."

With a jerk of her arm, Ritsuko produced a gun from her pocket and leveled it at the Commander. "That is exactly the sort of thing that got you here."

"And what, exactly, brought _you _here?" Gendo Ikari asked, concrete in his voice. "You resent me for using you. You always have, and I have always known. And yet you did not hesitate to let me use you. Like your mother, that is all you have ever been good for. Even now." He turned his gaze to Kluge. "Even by him."

Ritsuko glowered. "I brought him here to finish you!"

"As I said, stupid." Ikari smiled, his lips a thin slanted line. From behind his glasses, his eyes seemed frozen into crystal slabs. "Tell me, Chief Kluge, how is Congressman Keel these days?"

Ritsuko's eyes shot wide. Her head turned to the old man standing with her as a kind of horrifying understanding tore at her expression. It was almost painful for Rei to watch. This was how betrayal looked in the human heart. And Rei suddenly sensed amusement, not from Ikari or Kluge, but from the anonymous soldier who had first grasped her attention.

There was a long silence.

"The Congressman sends his regards," Kluge finally said, ignoring Ritsuko's seething glare. "He wished he could be here himself, but his health has been an issue lately."

Ikari nodded. "He is aware, I assume, that Unit-08 has been disposed of. The Eva Series is incomplete, and without the Spear of Longinus there is nothing for you to do here."

But before any answer could be made, Ritsuko had turned her gun against Kluge, stepping back, her horror at his betrayal having quickly melted the sort of anger Rei had only ever seen from the Second Child. The soldiers around them immediately targeted her, but held their fire.

"You lied to me!" she bellowed.

"If we can't lie to one another, neither of our goals will become a reality," Kluge said. He didn't bother looking at her, not even to acknowledge her weapon threatening him. "Or would you have me believe you haven't lied to me? Would you like me to think you do not have a contingency prepared? I know you better than that."

Ritsuko ground her teeth, but Kluge continued.

"And yes, Keel realized the situation. We never anticipated that you would throw away the Spear of Longinus. And Unit-08 was an unfortunate choice of foreign policy by the Americans. It hardly matters. As we speak my squads are moving through the facility. They will kill the pilots on sight. By the end of today, everything and everyone here will belong to SEELE. Like it should have been."

"You still can't launch Instrumentality," Ikari said, and if the prospect of losing his son phased him, he didn't show it. "For all this death and destruction, you will ultimately fail."

Kluge's wrinkled features contorted into a malicious grimace. "You underestimate SEELE. We have arrived at a different solution. One the Doctor herself provided."

"What are you talking about?" Ritsuko barked, blonde eyebrows drawn.

There was the slightest turn of Kluge's head, and the masked solder stepped forward. He reached up and removed his helmet, revealing a mop of shaggy white hair; he removed his tinted goggles, and red eyes glowed into the darkness from atop a sharp-featured white face. Rei knew him—she had met him before, so long ago it seemed like another life. And yet there was nothing about this person that felt familiar to her.

She knew immediately that this being was not Kaworu Nagisa. He was something else—he was the dead tree, he was the endless ocean of LCL, the feeling of drowning, the endless loneliness, the despair.

She definitely knew him.

Even the Commander failed to hide his surprise. Ritsuko gasped. "The Fifth Child?"

"I am the end," the boy with Kaworu Nagisa's form said. His voice was low and melodic, his face completely devoid of all emotion. "And as all things came from one and nothingness, so must they all return to one, and nothingness."

"No!" Open fear in her eyes, Ritsuko turned her gun on the boy and fired.

The darkness glowed. A wall appeared out of nothingness—concentric lines creating a transparent octagon shape that stopped the bullet in mid air. Rei recognized it. She had see this before inside the Eva. An AT Field.

And then the wall changed shape, folding in on itself and projecting outwards. Ritsuko was sent flying. She hit the deck with a loud thud, and lay there motionless.

Kluge turned to Rei. "Kill the First Child."

Time seemed to stop for a heartbeat, and Rei didn't know if it was simply the awareness that she might be about to die or something else. Could she die? Certainly anything that lived, anything that breathed, loved, hated, could die. She had never been afraid of death. Her life had been the consummation of the wishes of others, the purposes of others, and her death, in contrast, would mark the end of those motives. She would lose nothing of her own. But that wasn't the case anymore. She had purpose that was hers now, and a life that, for the first time, belonged to her.

She wanted to live. She wanted to see Keiko Nagara again, to speak with Shinji Ikari, and maybe, if fate and kindness should smile on her, to reconcile with the Second Child. Those were the bonds that gave her life meaning. In rejecting her original purpose, those were the relationships that justified her decision.

And then she saw Gendo Ikari rushing towards her. His large, strong arms wrapped around her slender form. He swept her off her feet. There were flashes. She didn't hear the weapons being fired, but heard—and felt—the bullets ripping into flesh. She landed hard on her back; Ikari toppled over her like a statue, his pained face only a few inches from hers. The right lens on his glasses had shattered. His eyes remained hard.

"I don't regret what I've done," he groaned with great effort, pushing himself onto his arms, bent over her. "I did it … for the same reasons you chose to defy me. I told Shinji that we must all stand on our own. I never meant that for you."

He reached up and undid the triangle shaped clasp of his collar, letting his shirt fall open to reveal a heavy black vest underneath. He pressed his fingers against two holes in the vest, piercing his right flank. Rei could see blood pouring out, running down and dripping both on her and the floor.

The wounds were mortal. But while Rei felt that any loss of life was a tragedy, she could not share any words of comfort with him. He had stood on his own, and walked his own path. Now that path had to end.

It was ironic that the man who had always lived manipulating those around him resolutely sacrificed himself to protect her, but she knew it was not because he cared.

Ikari seemed to realize that, and a cynical smile came to his lips. His strength finally failed him, and he laid his head in the crook of her neck. Rei did the only thing that came naturally to her—she put her arms around him.

"Just a copy … " he murmured weakly in her ear, "but you were more family to Shinji than I ever was. I leave him in your hands. You can save him." His eyes rolled back. His voice faded, and the last words seemed to echo directly in Rei's head. "I made it so …"

Rei was still holding on to him when the white-haired boy came to stand over them. The eyes, red and as lifeless as the body now pressing down on her, glowed eerily. So much like her own, and yet utterly different.

Out of the corner of her vision, she noticed Kluge had moved to where Ritsuko still lay, circling around her. She had regained consciousness, rolling onto her side, and was now trying to type something into her PDA. She looked up, her eyes defiant as he put a gun to her head.

"You were right," she groaned. "I have a contingency. I have two Evangelion units with unlimited power and two pilots with everything to lose. What can your puppet do against that?"

"Unfortunately, my dear doctor, you will not be around to see it." His finger tightened on the trigger. "Such a pity."

"Fuck you."

Again Rei did not hear the shot. The back of Ritsuko Akagi's head exploded into a red mist and sprayed on the ground, next to her dead body.

"Humans are wretched creatures," the boy said. He sounded amused. "But we are not like them. I failed to understand the first time we met, inside Unit-00. I had been alone for so long that I had given up. I would never fulfill my purpose. Then you came to me, and you were lost. Like me."

"Kaworu Nagisa is dead," Rei told him. "Do you have a name?"

He smiled at her. "I am myself, and that is all I need."

"Then I am not like you."

"Our bodies, at least, are the same—the basic building blocks of our physiognomy originate from the same source. But you have allowed yourself to be tainted by them and become a tortured spawn attached to weaker beings. You seek to be like them. I seek to bring them to me, to share myself with them and make them mine."

Rei felt a chill run up her spine. "And if they do not wish to share themselves with you?"

"I will leave them no choice." He grinned, sharp and cold. His gaze turned towards Kluge as the old man approached them. "I suppose it is my turn now."

"Why haven't you killed her?" Kluge demanded, his voice gruff and impatient. "She's Ikari's thing."

"Because I have no need," the white-haired boy calmly replied.

Kluge began raising his gun towards Rei's head. She stared into the empty blackness of the barrel.

"Put that away," the boy tilted his head slightly sideways, rolling the red orbs of his eyes to the old man. "Bullets will not do. She is beyond your primitive methods."

Kluge scowled at him, becoming angrier by the moment. "Then I am ordering you to kill her."

"Go away."

"We had a deal!" Kluge roared, and swung his gun, now pointing at his supposed ally. "You will obey me or you will be destroyed."

The boy looked at him curiously. "I am intrigued by this behavior. You betray others so easily, yet you expect different from me. Have you not learned from your own nature? I have." His smile broadened as he turned his attention back to Rei. "The simple reality of it is that there can be no pacts between gods and men. There is nothing between us—I am what I am, and if you believed you could control me, that was your mistake."

Kluge squeezed the trigger, but the bullet had barely traveled more than a foot when it was caught by an AT Field and simply stopped in mid air.

There was only anger in Kluge's face. He moved back urgently, and Rei knew he must have realized that very instant that he couldn't win. "Kill—"

The darkness came alive with muzzle flashes and the drumming of machine guns. And there was a flash of light, like expanding red and yellow lines pushing outwards. And with the light came a wave of heat and the air itself seemed to waver and boil. Rei caught a last glance of Kluge's face as he was hurled up by the expanding AT Field. As he hit the ground his body seemed simply to lose its form and burst into a thick splash of orange liquid not unlike that filling the ocean behind her.

Even as Kluge's existence came to an abrupt end, Rei felt Gendo Ikari's heavy body dissolve on top of her, bathing her in a shower of the same orange liquid and leaving his wet clothes draped over her. And she recognized the smell of her birth—the smell of LCL. As the AT Field continued to expand, she heard groaning, followed by strange sounds that resembled balloons bursting. A second later she realized that all the soldiers around her had vanished. Their clothing and weapons remained scattered uselessly on the floor where they had once stood.

The AT Field eroded, but the massive energy it had released lingered in the chamber as superheated air, raising the temperature dramatically. Then Rei heard a series of popping noises like firecrackers as the unspent ammunition began going off.

And then, before she knew how it had happened, the air itself seemed to become ablaze and the clothing left behind caught fire. The burning embers drifted up, swirling like dry leaves carried by a wind, and the rising heat from the fire turned the immediate vicinity into a large convection oven.

The boy looked around himself, his expression one of awe at the power he had unleashed. The fire seemed to simply ignore him as everything else was reduced to ashes.

Somehow, Ikari's clothing, still draped over Rei's slender form, ignited last. Her own clothes soon followed, and the school uniform that been such a symbol of her status in life peeled away and became more of the charred debris that filled the air. She cried out and writhed, anticipating the feeling of being burned alive.

But her flesh would not burn.

* * *

As the red blocks that symbolized the MAGI computer nodes turned from red back to green, the eyes of everyone in the control room turned to the display in surprise and relief. Fuyutsuki was among them. "Good work, Lieutenant."

On the deck below him, Makoto Hyuga seemed puzzled. "It wasn't me, sir." He checked his laptop screen even as other technicians returned to sit at their consoles. "The locks were released. MAGI appears to be back under our control."

Ritsuko's doing, Fuyutsuki thought. Perhaps Ikari had managed to convince her. It didn't change the fact that the JSSDF was still bearing down on them, but some good news was better than none.

"Declare a Level One alert," Fuyutsuki ordered. Shutting down the MAGI had severely hampered their defense capabilities, but now that they were back on-line he needed to get everyone where they belonged and do everything he could to stall the JSSDF. "Encrypt all incoming and outgoing communications. 128-bit key. Seal all access routes."

This was followed by a series of acknowledgments. "Locking down elevators. Closing blast doors. Begin Bakelite flooding, routes 6 to 27."

Fuyutsuki nodded. "Activate our main defenses."

"Sir," Haruna cried out, "our defenses are designed to fight Angels. They won't last long against the JSSDF."

"They don't have to," Fuyutsuki replied calmly. "Prepare the Evas for launch as soon as Major Katsuragi delivers the pilots."

"Yes, sir."

On the main display, Fuyutsuki saw the rocket launchers emerge from their concealed emplacements around the Geo-Front's perimeter—large concrete structures the size of multi-story buildings—and open fire on the JSSDF craft circling overhead. Barrages of missiles arched through the air, creating bright blossoms of death as they found their targets in the hovering gray V-TOLs, spraying shattered metal, severing tails, wings, engines, crushing cockpits.

There was some cheering in the bridge, the release of pent-up fear and helplessness after an unprovoked attack. Fuyutsuki himself remained silent and solemn. He did not feel any satisfaction after ending the lives of these young men. It was a pointless loss, but then so were most human endeavors.

The surviving aircraft drew back and circled. Rather than assault the missile batteries themselves, they released a stream of rockets against the nearby radar stations, knocking them out one by one. The damage registered on the large holographic map in the forward area of the bridge as red dots with small labels signifying that station's destruction. They weren't going to last long at all.

Other screens showed NERV's huge electronic doors, which had slammed shut on Fuyutsuki's orders, now being wired with explosives by gray and green-clad JSSDF soldiers. The Bakelite filled hallways would be much more difficult to breach, but unfortunately they couldn't completely seal off the installation that way. The invading troops would find a way around them. The noose would close. But Fuyutsuki was not worried about that.

He just needed to buy Ikari time.

"Sir, we are receiving reports of large-scale fighting in the main cage," Aoba said from his station. "Along with casualty reports through the cage access and testing areas." His voice turned grim. "The hospital wing is a bloodbath."

Fuyutsuki leaned with his hands on the rail, towering over the deck below. "Show me."

Small windows opened on the main display containing video feeds from different parts of the installation. The top window showed a feed from one of the reception areas in the hospital wing, strewn with the dead bodies of the staff. There was blood on everything.

The bridge crew stared. Some clasped their hands over their mouths. Others sobbed. It was one thing to have fought Angels from afar and another to see colleagues, friends, maybe loved ones killed in cold blood. NERV had not been set up to fight this. NERV's people were not trained for this kind of battle. They were engineers, doctors, technicians—the brightest minds of any scientific endeavor since the Manhattan Project. The best of a generation that had almost seen their world come to an end. They deserved better than this.

The middle window resembled something out of an old war movie. It showed a section of the main cage where the NERV crews had erected a makeshift barricade and were fighting against the black-clad soldiers Fuyutsuki had seen before. The air was filled with smoke and the rattling of gunfire, obscuring some of the view to the camera. The barricades had been hastily thrown up with whatever could be found—maintenance equipment, storage bins, supply carts. They were far from an effective defense, and even someone with only the most basic understanding of military tactics could see that the NERV crews were being pushed back.

The soldiers advanced in formation, spreading to cover like an unstoppable black tide, firing in all directions, using grenades to clear parts of the barricade and overlapping their fields of fire to cover each other as they moved.

"MAGI is detecting an AT Field originating from Terminal Dogma," Shigeru Aoba called out. He checked his screen again. "The AT Field is reversing."

Fuyutsuki nodded. Perhaps Ikari would not need him to do anything after all. If he had convinced Rei to cooperate, the outcome of the battle raging around the Geo-Front would be meaningless. Instrumentality would begin soon.

"Pattern Blue detected!" Makoto Hyuga yelled.

"That's impossible!" Haruna cried out. "Is there an Angel inside Terminal Dogma?"

"There has always been," Fuyutsuki said calmly.

Almost as one, the entire crew turned their terrified gazes towards Fuyutsuki, a mixture of shock and disbelief in their eyes. They looked at him as so many students had done in the past, partaking in that ancient human ritual of seeking answers. Wanting to know.

"You have done your utmost," Fuyutsuki told them. "It will only be a little longer now. Even as our enemies close in around us, intending to destroy us, they do not realize we hold the means for our own salvation."

The former teacher straightened his back and clasped his hands behind him, watching the violence unfold in the screens in front of him.

"The AT Field has dissipated. Increased temperature readings."

Fuyutsuki frowned, but before he could form a question there was a flash on the screen and a second group of soldiers entered the main cage. Fuyutsuki recognized NERV uniforms being worn under the combat equipment—except these new warriors weren't NERV at all. Chaos ensued. The JSSDF troops turned and fired, but they were now being pressed from front and back. The barricades erected to slow them down became their graveyard.

Once the dust settled, Fuyutsuki caught a glimpse of Misato Katsuragi treading among the fallen debris and dead bodies. She reached into her pocket and produced her cell phone, which she held up to her ear.

"Incoming transmission from Major Katsuragi," Hyuga said.

"Put her on the speaker."

A moment later Misato Katsuragi's sharp voice filled the bridge. There was a ragged edge to it that was not normally there. It was understandable, but no less unnerving to anyone familiar with the Major. "I repeat, the main cage is secure."

"Just in time," Fuyutsuki said. "We have regained control of the MAGI, at least for the time being. We should be able to deploy the Eva units as soon as you are ready. Have you checked on the status of the Evas themselves?"

"I'm working on it. The pilots are both fine, but we have casualties."

Fuyutsuki nodded grimly. "We know. We saw the images from the medical ward."

Katsuragi seemed confused. "The medical ward? I meant—" there was a pause. "Never mind for now. I'll call back when the pilots are in place. Prepare emergency start-up procedures."

Whatever she had been about to say, Fuyutsuki had a feeling there was a good reason for the sudden reluctance. If it had been important to their current operation, Katsuragi would have said it. That she had stopped herself from doing so meant it was either not important enough or personal. He didn't press her.

"We will be ready for you."

It was all he could do now. They would know if Ikari succeeded; the end of the world would be hard to miss. Until then NERV had to survive by whatever means they could—live to witness the end of all things. The inherent dichotomy was not lost on Fuyutsuki.

* * *

As Shinji stepped into what was left of the access platform to the main cage, his throat choked with smoke and the acrid smell of spent gunpowder and explosives. He had his hand over his mouth and nose. Misato walked in front of him, surveying the scene and talking on her cell phone. Asuka was behind, her expression somewhere between annoyed and disinterested. She had been acting rather withdrawn, and Shinji didn't understand why—he didn't understand a lot of what was happening now.

Fuuka Sanada stood over the charred remains of what had, until a few minutes earlier, been a human being. Most of his upper body had been torn away by shrapnel as a grenade exploded nearby. Caught between the woman's charging team and the NERV barricades in front of them, the fight had been short and brutal.

Noticing his interest, Fuuka raised her assault rifle to her her shoulder. The tube at the bottom of the rifle was open and smoking. She smiled.

"Bitches didn't know about my grenade launcher."

That got a laugh from some of the other commandos, but Shinji felt disgusted at the almost gleeful tone in her voice. He could hardly believe this was the same woman who had offered him her yogurt the day before. She had seemed so welcoming and spoke so kindly to him …

He turned away without saying a word and moved further up the gantry.

Somehow the NERV crews which had been struggling to ready Eva Units 01 and 02, now secured in their launch-ready positions along the rails on the cage walls, had thrown up a series of improvised barricades using mostly equipment and random parts, blocking the gantries leading to the Eva platforms. Black scuff marks covered the walls near the entrance, and bullet holes had been carved into the metal slabs of the walls themselves. The equipment that made up the barricades themselves was black and twisted, shapeless masses of metal and plastics.

Between the soldiers and the NERV crews, there were bodies strewn everywhere, with the NERV technicians having lost most of their numbers before Fuuka and the others arrived. Shinji had to walk carefully to avoid stepping on anyone.

The survivors were only now climbing out of the wreckage, their faces terrified as they slumped forward and collapsed in groups. They were armed mostly with pistols and small sub-machine guns. The Americans moved among them, checking injuries, applying bandages and doing what they could. Unit-01 and Unit-02 looked down at the carnage, frozen in place, their entry-plugs open and waiting for their pilots.

"The Evas are ready for launch," one of the technicians said to Misato, his voice hoarse. His uniform had torn, a blood stain was on his left arm that Hanako, the American medic, was now bandaging. "We did what we could before the computers came back online. We haven't reset a lot of the systems. There hasn't been time for a full start-up check."

Misato nodded. "Thanks. How are your people?"

"We got hit pretty hard." He looked around. Hanako helped him sit on the deck. "I won't lie to you, we could have used your help a little sooner."

"I'm sorry. We came as fast as we could." Misato glanced at Hanako. "Move the wounded to the pilots' ready room. There's also an infirmary with supplies and triage equipment. Grab anything you need."

"Great," Asuka murmured in a surly tone. "First, I have to surrender my dignity. Now, my ready room. You sure you don't want them to pilot Unit-02?"

Hanako nodded to Misato, completely ignoring Asuka. The redhead gritted her teeth.

"We don't know how many more contacts are inside Central Dogma," Fuuka said, marching up to them and placing a hand on Hanako's shoulder, stopping her. "We can defend this position more easily than if we spread out looking for supplies or moving wounded. We should secure and consolidate first."

"These people are not soldiers," Misato said unhappily. "We'll defend this position, but the wounded have to be moved."

While the adults argued and continued to ignore her, the anger Asuka had been bottling up finally seemed to boil over and she took off with an unhappy huff. She brushed past Shinji, her gait stiff, fists clenched. "Asuka, don't go yet," Misato called out. "I want a word with both of you guys."

Asuka did not even bother turning back. She climbed up one of the gantries and made her way to Unit-02's waiting entry-plug. Her angry footsteps thudded loudly on the metal.

Misato sighed, probably realizing there was little she could do about Asuka's hurt feelings, and gave Shinji an apologetic glance. By the time she returned to Fuuka, the other woman had been pulled aside and into an argument with a tall man from the group of survivors.

Shinji's attention followed Asuka as she climbed up a series of stairs onto a central platform that split into two smaller gantries on either side, one leading to Unit-01 and one to Unit-02. Here she stopped and looked up at her Eva. Shinji felt a sudden urgency—not guilt but the distinct feeling that he should do something. Knowing he was helplessly out of place among the grownups, he began walking after Asuka.

She was still looking at her Eva when he stepped on the central platform behind her. As he approached, he could see her muscles grow tense through the material of her suit, and only her long hair prevented him from having a completely unhindered view of her bare back. But he didn't really care to notice such details right now.

"Don't ask me any stupid questions," Asuka murmured sullenly before Shinji could say anything, finally turning to him. Her face was serious, almost threatening. He stood his ground.

"What's wrong?"

"Everything's wrong!" Asuka snapped. "Where have you been the last hour? "

Shinji shook his head. "That's not what I meant. You dragged me out of there. You made me move forward when I just wanted to hide. I thought all you wanted was to get here. But now ..." he dropped his gaze, focusing on her red-clad feet, "something is bothering you. And it's not just what's been happening. It was only after Misato—"

"When the hell did you become a therapist?"

Shinji said nothing. He wanted to talk to her, but he knew, from painful experience, that Asuka just wanted an answer she could scream at.

Finally, Asuka blew out her breath in annoyance, which seemed to help her get a hold of herself. She shifted her feet and set her hands on the slight bumps of her hips. The next time she spoke, her voice had softened noticeably.

"I didn't realize it until now," she said. "It's not that I disagree with anything Misato said. I know it's all true. But it should be me. I'm your girlfriend. I should be able to talk to you like she does."

He almost couldn't believe it—people were dying all around them, NERV HQ was under military assault and they might die, and this was what bothered her? That she might be a bad girlfriend because she couldn't talk to him like Misato did? Given the circumstances, it seemed like the height of selfishness.

And yet, this was Asuka. The self-centered way her mind worked was impossible to figure out. Shinji had made the mistake of trying far too many times. But he didn't need to understand. This was important enough to bother her, and that was all he needed to know.

"Asuka—"

"It's stupid, I know," Asuka cut him off. "But that doesn't relieve me of the responsibility. You've done too much for me. I can't just look away. I shouldn't be able to. And I should say what I feel."

"You don't have to say anything." Shinji moved closer to her, his steps barely audible on the metal grating below his feet.

Asuka sounded skeptical. "You are just too afraid to ask anything of me because you think I'll get mad and yell at you. Maybe you think I'll dump you or something."

"You _would_ yell at me," he admitted.

"And you don't think there's anything wrong with that?"

"I don't know." Shinji dropped his hand down to hers and, too his surprise, she took it. He bowed his head, as though he were about to place it on her shoulder. She was so close … he could feel the coolness of her plug-suited body against his, her breath against the side of his face, the familiar smell of her hair. "But you are right. I am afraid."

"Typical," Asuka whispered in his ear. "Tell me something. Back there, before everything went to hell, you were so surprised when I said I liked it when you blush. Do you want to know what else I like about you?"

Shinji nodded.

"I like that you don't try to hide your flaws. It's obnoxious and infuriating, but at least it's honest. But me … I tried so hard to hide everything I disliked about myself. And I failed miserably. I always fail at the things that are important to me." Her hand squeezed his a bit tighter. "I won't fail this time. I'll say what I feel, no matter how much I don't want to. I may not get another chance."

"Asuka—" Shinji started shaking his head, but stopped when Asuka raised her free hand and placed it against his cheek.

"You don't get it, do you?" She sounded slightly peeved. "Even if we win today, nothing is going to be the same. We are not going to climb out of our Evas, shower and go home. We are going to have to kill people, and that's fine with me. They attacked us. But what if we can't win? What if we die?"

Shinji felt her gloved fingers brush up the side of his face into his hair. He couldn't bring himself to answer.

Asuka sighed. "Whatever happens, I want you to know why I'm really fighting. It's not that I'm angry, or that they tried to kill me, or even that I want to show off in my Eva like I always used to." She took his hand and brought it to her chest, above her left breast where the opaque yellow strip turned into transparent orange, over her heart. "This time I have something worth fighting for. Something I want to protect. And someone."

A feeling of warmth grew inside Shinji's chest. He looked up and found Asuka's round blue eyes peering at him from behind scattered bangs of golden-red hair, full of seriousness far beyond her years. But as touched as he was, he still didn't think she had to justify his love for her by saying things she wasn't comfortable with, especially in such difficult circumstances. Just this once, he wanted to make her understand that.

So he did the only thing he could think of doing. Holding his breath to keep from tickling her, he leaned in. There was a momentary look of surprise on Asuka's face, but then she got it and dipped her head towards him in response. Her pink lips parted, matching his own.

"Ahem."

Nearly kissing, both teenage pilots turned their heads in the direction of the noise—and found themselves staring at a small group of onlookers that had assembled on the gantry platform just a few feet away. Misato was in the middle, an oddly pleased smile showing on her face. Fuuka was off to the left, also smiling. Everyone else was just trying to appear as inconspicuous as people caught peeping could.

Asuka scowled darkly at the lot of them, but she failed to hide the blush rising to her cheeks. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Just long enough," Misato said in a teasing tone.

Shinji felt his own cheeks warm up. Asuka hastily jerked her hand out of his grasp and in the same instant stepped away from him.

"Don't get any ideas. Me and the idiot were just—"

"Oh, I think we know very well what you two were doing," Fuuka said. "It's really cute."

"It is NOT cute!" Asuka's face became even redder. "Mind your own business!"

The flustered redhead turned and stomped down the gantry towards her entry-plug, hands balled up and feet thudding loudly. A small cheer erupted from the surviving members of her crew, but if Asuka appreciated the gesture or was moved by it, she didn't want to let anyone know. As she climbed into the half-opened cylinder of her entry-plug, most of the males present in the chamber—including Shinji—showed her the courtesy of looking somewhere else.

It then occurred to Shinji that he was wearing the same sort of suit and that there were also women in the chamber. He just wasn't going to get a break today.

"Um, Misato ..."

His guardian shrugged him off. "It's okay, Shinji. I know how it is. You don't have to explain anything." She nodded towards Unit-01. "Go on. Do your thing."

He looked up at her and saw the concern had returned to her face. He felt a pang of sadness as he understood.

This could be their farewell.

"I hate sending you out under these sort of circumstances, but there's nothing else I can do now," Misato said soothingly. "It's up to you. I guess it's always been up to you. That may not be fair but it's the truth. We are depending on you."

But Shinji still didn't move, and there were suddenly so many things he wanted to say to her. She was more than a friend to him, more than a guardian or a mentor. She had been there when nobody else would try to reach out, when he was alone and hopeless. She had done her best to help him and be kind to him even when he didn't think he deserved it. She was the reason he had gotten over Kaworu's death, holding him as he cried for hours. Hers was the advice that kept him going. In the absence of a mother, she had been the next best thing.

"Thank you, Misato," Shinji said, bowing his head in respect and endless gratitude.

Misato smiled again. She tapped his chin with her hand, making him look up at her, then leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. "Be safe. Look after Asuka."

Shinji cherished her touch as if it were the last time—because he knew that it might be.

"Hey, Stupid Shinji!" Asuka's voice rung out, shrill and loud as ever. Shinji and Misato glanced her way.

Standing on top of her entry-plug's command seat, one foot on the cushion and another on the main console, hands on her hips and a frown on her face, the redhead looked like she was ready for action. "Are you done yet? Come on. I'm sick of walking around with my ass hanging out."

"I almost feel sorry for the JSSDF," Misato quipped, squeezing Shinji's shoulder. She locked her eyes on his. "Do what you can. And then come back to me. I'll be waiting for you."

Shinji nodded. With the certainty of someone who knew this was all he could do to protect what was important to him, he began walking to his Eva. He didn't look back to Misato, but he did catch a glimpse of Asuka plopping down onto her command seat just before the lid of the entry-plug closed over her.

Once at the base of Unit-01's entry-plug, Shinji climbed the small access ladder and took his seat at the controls. It was a tight but comfortable fit, with a main console between his knees and two elaborate control handles running on rails on either side of the seat.

He had barely enough time to settle in before the top closed over his head, apparently running on automatic. In total blackness, his damaged hearing filled with a faint hum from the bulkhead behind him and the sound of liquid flowing into the plug. The LCL felt cold as it rose around him—it was always cold before synchronization—and he smelled the familiar scent that resembled blood. Less than a minute later he was totally immersed. He took a deep breath, and the oxygenated liquid rushed into his lungs. Everything went quiet.

Then, in a flash of rainbow colored light that seemed to spark out of the darkness in front of him, the outside world appeared, seen as if through a canopy. Shinji turned his head, looking down at the carnage on the platforms below him. Misato was talking with Fuuka again, both of them gesturing unhappily. Directly in front of him, Unit-02's armored form gleaned red, its four eyes lit up.

The thought of Asuka made everything feel suddenly warm. Looking down at himself, Shinji noticed that the red sensor disks on his transparent suit were now glowing. And the hum he had hear earlier had returned, louder and more insistent. The ringing in his right ear had stopped and he could hear on that side again.

Shinji reached up a hand and touched the oversized neural connectors still nestled in his brown hair. They were hot and humming. It took another moment to realize that his hearing hadn't healed, but that the sounds were coming from inside his head. He also noticed that Unit-01 felt lighter.

With his other hand, he thumbed the radio on one of the control sticks by his side. "Asuka, are you there?"

A small video window opened to his right, floating in the LCL but appearing to hang there as if in midair. It showed Asuka inside her plug. Her brow was drawn in concentration, but she smiled when she saw him.

"Yeah." She leaned slightly forward. "Where else would I be?"

"Does everything feel—"

"Lighter?" Asuka cut him off. "Yeah. My suit is glowing, too. I wonder if this is one of the upgrades Maya was talking about."

Shinji nodded, though the mention of their murdered friend brought a heavy feeling to his chest. He had never dealt very well with death. A new voice promptly distracted him before the feeling could develop into anything more.

"Harmonics check normal. Signal boost initiated. Advanced feedback … ah, exceeding maximum threshold. S2 engine voltage normal."

"Synch-ratio steady at 110%."

Asuka's image jumped in her seat. Her eyebrows arched as her smile turned to awed puzzlement. "One hundred and ten percent? Just like that?"

"Shinji, Asuka, we have the tactical channel open for you," Hyuga said, his serious voice in stark contrast to Asuka's excitement. "MAGI is currently identifying JSSDF positions. We will deploy you in separate routes. Anticipate heavy resistance. They will come at you with everything they've got. You are cleared to use your AT Field and any offensive weapons you are now carrying."

"What is the plan?" Asuka inquired, looking somewhere off screen.

"We don't have one at the moment," Misato's voice said. "Not really."

Shinji supposed they were routing her into his communication system. A quick glance out of Unit-01's canopy confirmed she had picked up her cell phone again and was now holding it to her ear as she walked down the gantry.

"Military operations are generally executed with a certain level of expected losses. Given what we have seen today, the JSSDF took great care to ensure we did not launch the Evangelions. They know as well as anyone that they don't have enough firepower to penetrate your AT Fields. Once you are deployed, there is nothing they can do. They will be forced to either call off this operation or, at the very least, talk to us."

Asuka scowled. "So you are saying we break all their toys until they decide they don't want to play anymore?"

"Something along those lines, yes."

"That's a pretty crappy plan."

There was a pause, and Shinji thought Asuka was about to be publicly scolded for being so blunt on a channel that likely everyone inside Central Dogma could hear. Instead, Misato answered pleasantly, "Then you are welcome to impress me."

"Oh, okay." The redhead's tone lightened at the realization that had just been told to do whatever she wanted. She looked pointedly at Shinji through the screen. "And, Misato, don't worry. We have this."

Down on the gantry, Misato gave them both a smile and a thumbs up. "We are counting on you. Our own guardian angels. Godspeed, guys. I love you."

Shinji could almost feel her words in the warm LCL around him, as if Unit-01 were somehow transmitting the emotions directly to him. He sat back and tightened his hold on the control sticks.

"Evangelion Units 01 and 02 … launch!"

* * *

The last of the burning embers settled on the ground as ash, but Rei's skin remained untouched. Her clothes taken away by the fire, she was now naked, her flesh an eery, ghostly white. Motionless, she stared at the seemingly empty, black void above her head. She raised her right hand, her red eyes staring at it as if in a trance.

"Yes, you are still alive."

Rei turned her head towards the sound of the voice. The boy who was not Kaworu Nagisa stooped down over the spot where Dr. Akagi had been killed—where now there was nothing left of the woman save fore the charred remains of her clothing—and picked up the partially-melted PDA. He studied it briefly before straightening. Then he turned to Rei.

"When we first met I was nothing but a consciousness trapped in a shell," he said, pacing back to where she lay, his eyes glowing red like two rubies lit from the inside. "I suppose it would be fair to call you the same. You could not answer my questions."

Rei pushed herself up on her elbows. Her eyes flicked down her nude body, gleaming white flesh exposed to the hot air. "You were in my Eva," she said absently.

"I _was_ your Eva," he said. "I was you. For those brief moments that we synchronized, our minds were the same. But you were empty. A shell and nothing else. How could I accept such a being? It is my nature to learn from others, and work towards a higher state through my understanding. I could not learn from you and so you were useless to me."

He held up the PDA, running his gloved fingers along the edge as if looking for something.

"But soon I found another. I found a mind desperately craving for attention and affection, yet despising the very things she wanted. She cried, begged me to help her save someone who had hurt her. Hurt so badly that I could hardly comprehend it. Hurt that defined every waking moment of her life. And yet she wanted me to help her save him. Her heart could have been filled with concrete, buried in stones, permanently shut behind her hurt. Even her Eva would not synchronize with her. It rejected her. But I was there."

Rei sat, watching him carefully. The floor was warm under her bare buttocks, but she felt no real pain. He regarded her briefly, his face unreadable.

"I was there," he repeated. "But she was willing, for the sake of the one who hurt her. Then I pried her mind open. And once inside her head, I sought answers to my questions. I violated her. Over and over, every time we synchronized. It did not take effort. She was already broken from childhood, from loss and hurt. And I learned."

He removed the glove on his right hand, then pressed his thumb between his teeth and bit down on it, drawing blood. A single crimson line ran from his lips.

"And I saw in her suffering the fulfillment of my purpose. Not simply how, but why."

Rei felt a spark of anger. She thought of her own experience when inside Unit-00 that first time, and of the Second Child, and what she must have gone through. "You caused her suffering."

"She caused her own suffering. I merely brought it into context. I made it undeniable. In exchange for her mind, I gave her truth. And the truth hurts."

"Not always," Rei said.

"You obviously understand nothing of the human condition," he told her, running his bloodied thumb over the edge of the PDA. "Suffering is all they know. Throughout their short history, suffering is a constant. You share their body, but not their minds—not her mind. You can not understand this." He gave her a cynical grin. "And if you did, what does it say about you that you never attempted to help her?"

The accusation struck deeply in Rei's chest. "I did not know."

"Is that really an excuse?"

Rei shook her head, fighting the surge of guilt. How many times had she seen the Second Child act out of pain? She could understand Shinji's pain because he carried it so openly, sharing his emotions, at times without even meaning to. But the Second—the girl she had never even earned the privilege to call Asuka—was completely anathema to her.

"I did know." The white-haired boy stood and looked up at the white creature on the cross. "I shared her suffering. I was there. I know her fears, her dreams, her hopes. Everything wretched that holds back the complementation of the soul out of absolute terror. That is the sin of her nature.. They can never understand one another. They can never truly be together. They are not meant to."

But Rei didn't believe that. She had experienced too much to simply throw aside her perception of humanity. She had failed Asuka, to her eternal regret, but she had helped Keiko. Despite their own flaws, she had seen those around her show their compassion and love, and the ability to understand one another. And she had shared in that—through Shinji and Keiko and everyone else she had met. Even with their AT Fields, that perpetual separation of the individual rendered by fear, they had made her a part of them. Through their gestures, their words, their feelings, they had made her a part of them, as they did with each other.

And she remembered that train ride, so many months ago, when she had asked Shinji about her humanity. After months of silence and loneliness, of avoiding her because she wasn't the Rei Ayanami close to his heart, he had spoken words that touched her deeply.

Rei Ayanami was human enough for Shinji Ikari.

And though they were different people, Rei carried her burden, had expanded on her bonds; shared her humanity and what the boy standing here with her had called sins. But while the individuality of the heart was born from fear, it was no more sinful than any other act of fearfulness. Everything felt fear. Humanity, both shared and individual was balance—great suffering tempered by joy, companionship by loneliness, hurt by healing, fear by that impossible bravery of beings willing to risk their lives for the sake of others. Being human meant taking all that in, and living with it.

Rei knew what she had to do. She closed her eyes, apologizing to Keiko for breaking her promise, and slowly got to her feet.

"You are wrong." Her voice was firm, almost angry. She stood there perfectly still, the creature on the cross looming over her left shoulder.

The boy tossed the PDA aside. "Pointless words from a fallen angel. You are worse than them. You have a choice. Yet this is what you would make of your fate? What could you possibly hope to achieve? My brothers are coming. And the end of the world will come with them."

"I will not let you do this."

He smiled, replacing his glove. "How will you stop me?"

How didn't matter; only that she had to. Rei knew that. She was not afraid to move—because others needed her to and because she had so many things she did not want to lose. And those things were worth fighting a hopeless battle, and even dying for.

Rei took a deep breath. Then, the patter of her bare feet echoing in the chamber, naked and weaponless, she charged—straight into an octagonal wall of light.

* * *

General Isoyuro Minamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese Strategic Self-Defense Force's 4th Mountain Division leaned back in his chair. He was rather pleased with how the situation had developed, despite NERV having activated their defenses and shooting down a few aircraft before the emplacement could be neutralized. He had to admit he did not expect that the operation would go as smoothly as Musashi Kluge had seemed to believe, but he had done the most prudent thing and planned carefully.

The forest clearing around him was rather crowded. Six communication vehicles had been arranged into a large circle, receiving the stream of information being relayed in real-time from the forward units. Second and Third Brigades were presently working their way into Central Dogma, so far with minimal resistance. Meanwhile, First Brigade was still clearing out civilians from the shelters and moving them out of the city.

Kluge had assured him that his soldiers would be unopposed, as most of the NERV personnel, including the security detachments, would be inside the base itself, but even the threat that NERV would try to defend Central Dogma as a last ditch effort had failed to materialize. The worst his men on the front lines were reporting locked doors and corridors stuffed with some kind of plastic-like substance hindering their progress.

And, most heartening of all, the Evangelions had yet to make an appearance. Minamoto was not stupid, and he lacked the recklessness that military bravado tended to breed in officers of his rank. He knew he could throw most—if not all—of the firepower at his disposal against an Eva unit and not put a dent in it. The things he had seen those monstrosities do simply defied rationalization.

Of course, Kluge had given assurances that the Evangelion would play no part in the battle today, but such promises could hardly ever be relied upon. Kluge's men, all hand-picked by the Department Chief himself, had gone in with him as part of an infiltration force with the objective of securing the Evas and, if possible, their young pilots for interrogation. Kluge would then lead a smaller team to apprehend the man responsible for all this, Gendo Ikari. Meanwhile, 4th Mountain would engage in diversionary operations, eating away at NERV's capability to fight back and removing civilians. So far, Minamoto had done just that.

The only problem was that nobody had heard from Kluge since his people had gone inside the Geo-Front. Nobody actually knew what was happening with the Evas or the pilots or Ikari. Hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces and thousands of men waiting all around Tokyo-3, doing their best, were hampered by a lack of information. And Minamoto hated waiting. He hated not knowing even more.

Minamoto checked his watch. Five minutes had already passed. He turned as his communication officer emerged from one of the vehicles and came to him across the clearing.

"Any word from Kluge?"

The younger man shook his head ruefully. "Still nothing, General."

"I am a patient man, Lieutenant, but this is bordering on dereliction of duty. How long has it been since the last update?"

The man pushed up the brown-green patterned sleeve of his uniform and checked his own watch. "Going on two hours, sir."

Minamoto cursed and rose out of his chair. Enough was enough, and he had far too much invested already. Kluge should have contacted him by now, unless, of course, he was somehow unable—which meant he was dead and his infiltration had failed.

"Set up a communication link with the Minister of the Interior," Minamoto told the officer, who nodded and hurried back into the vehicle. He next turned to one of the other men assembled in the clearing, leaning against a green HMMWV. "Captain, I want you to assemble a team to trace Kluge's route into Central Dogma. We need to know what's got the bastard sidetracked."

The captain saluted and rushed off to carry his orders in the HMMWV. Why couldn't Musashi Kluge have the same sort of efficiency as the military? It had been a mistake putting a glorified pencil-pusher in charge of such a complicated operation.

Minamoto blew out his breath in a sigh.

"Sir, the link is ready," his communication officer called. "The Minister is in some kind of budgetary meeting, but his Chief of Staff is on the line and waiting."

Grumbling about the need for discussing budgets when there was full-scale battle unfolding on their very doorstep, Minamoto marched across the clearing and began climbing the short steps into the communication vehicle. A reflection on the dark tinted side windows caught his eyes—something in the clear blue sky that shouldn't have been there. He turned and looked up, raising his hand to shield against the sun.

There were two suns in the sky. One, the actual sun, was round and yellow, hanging frozen in the sky. The other was a tiny flaring shape, more like a twinkling star than a sun. And falling.

The strange image took a second to register, and another second before Minamoto realized what he was looking at. The flare that was now descending on the geographical center of the Geo-Front was neither the sun nor a star. It was—

"Alert all AA batteries!" he ordered to no one in particular. "We have incoming!"

But it was too late. The man-made star plunged into the ground just north of the lake that occupied most of what had once been Tokyo-3's downtown district, and was followed by a huge pillar of light towering endlessly towards the heavens. Minamoto stared, wide-eyed, as the blinding light spread in all directions, obliterating the landscape in front of him.

He never heard the bomb. By the time any sound reached the clearing the pressure wave had ripped everything and everyone off the face of the Earth.

* * *

The control room shook as the roof of the Geo-Front bowed inwards and disappeared into a huge ball of light. The deck suddenly swept from under him, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki lost his balance and slumped over the nearest console. Screens flicked and and shattered. The main display faded into static then flashed back. People toppled and screamed, crashing onto the ground.

Grabbing a hold of his console, Fuyutsuki pushed himself onto his feet. Like everyone else, he directed his gaze towards the main display and stared. Where the Geo-Front's roof and Tokyo-3's inverted downtown buildings should have been there was now only blue sky. Enormous columns of steam and smoke billowed over the crater as what was left of Lake Ashino poured into the opening, becoming a huge cascade of water on all sides.

The Geo-Front was gone. The city had been destroyed, and Central Dogma's landscape now lay completely exposed to the outside.

And then, silhouetted on the blue canvas above them, Fuyutsuki saw eight bird-shaped figures flying in a circle. The scale was wrong however; birds would not have been visible at this distance. Birds didn't carry large purple double-side meat cleavers.

The Eva Series.

What could SEELE be thinking sending in the Eva Series? With only eight units they could not be expecting to launch Instrumentality, could they? It didn't work like that, and Congressman Keel knew that. Even worse was the fact that they were now also missing the Lance of Longinus, so even if they succeeded in completing the initial stages of the ceremony, they could not control its outcome. They would simply kill every human being on the planet and the promise of redemption would be lost.

Or perhaps they had expected that NERV would deploy its own Evas to fight the JSSDF. In that case this was the most logical form of escalation. SEELE could only hope to fight an Eva with another. That had to be it. Fuyutsuki dreaded considering the other possibility. If SEELE no longer cared about controlling Instrumentality they could simply turn Central Dogma into a large hole in the ground.

"Terminal depth access routes opening!" someone who had managed to crawl to one of the consoles on the deck below reported.

"How is that possible?" Fuyutsuki called out, surveying the lower deck as men and women return to their stations. "Seal us off from the surface."

"We can't," Hyuga cried urgently from his station. "Gates are not responding. All armored doors on terminal access routes are now open all the way down to Terminal Dogma."

"Are we being hacked again?" By now each of the access routes, six in total, appeared as tunnels along the perimeter. Fuyutsuki knew the layout, and knew that these routes would converge in the antechamber to Lilith. If SEELE was here to start Third Impact, it was the fastest way to get to her.

Hyuga poured over his screen. Other technicians soon joined him, going through lines of code being output by the MAGI mainframe. "I don't know," he said finally, shaking his head. "There's some kind of recursion code inside the MAGI's logarithmic structure, changing functions as it goes. I'm trying to identify it."

Overhead, the eight bird-like Evangelions broke formation, their white armor glinting like pure ivory in the sunlight. They spiraled down, gliding almost gracefully with barely a flap of their wings. Like Unit-08, which belonged in the same class, they had long narrow heads with sharp snouts and lean bodies. Their wings were long membranes extending from points around the shoulder blades. In the case of Unit-08, however, the flight configuration had been disabled because the pilot was not skilled enough to use it. These units, presumably being flown by whatever SEELE used as a dummy pilot, had no such hindrance.

"MAGI's found a possible match for the code affecting the gate controls, but –" Haruna shook her head, her expression confused. "It doesn't make any sense. The software footprint roughly approximates that of the program Dr. Akagi used as a start-up interface for Unit-02. It's the only thing in the database that even comes close, but that program was completely purged several weeks ago."

Haruna couldn't have known, but Fuyutsuki's eyes widened. The program Doctor Akagi had used to link the Second Child's broken mind to Unit-02 was far more than simple software, it had to be to function as a bridge between a human mind and the Eva. For that matter, it was the same program that caused the Chinese-built Unit-A to mutate. Somehow Unit-02 had managed to purge itself, though no one yet understood exactly how it happened. And here it was again …

As Fuyutsuki watched, the mass production units rolled one after the other, entering a steep dive, and flared into the open tunnels. And the former professor finally understood.

"Divert both Unit-01 and 02 to Terminal Dogma!" he ordered, leaning over his rail as if that would somehow speed up the technicians carrying out his command. "Destroying the Eva Series is their only priority. They must not get past Heaven's Door. Once the Children are en route, seal off the MAGI. Shut it all down if you have to."

That drew confused glances. Hyuga said, "Shut down the MAGI?"

"It's the only way to stop this thing from spreading any further," Fuyutsuki retorted. "Failing that, it's the only way to keep it from using our own technology to kill us."

"Sir?"

Fuyutsuki studied the images on the screen, showing the eight mass production Evangelions and Unit-01 and 02 now descending into the deepest part of the facility. The Eva Series had a sizable lead. "On second thought, let me speak to the children."

* * *

"The Eva Series?" Asuka struggled to keep the distress from her voice as she turned round eyes towards the small window on her right. The words 'Sound Only' meant they couldn't see her, just as she couldn't see them, but they could hear her.

She had first learned of the Eva Series while training in Germany, though mostly by accident since she had seldom felt any interest in Eva units other than her own. Unit-02 had always been intended to be the production model, and she was happy with that, but the Eva Series was meant to provide a far cheaper and expendable alternative. In other words, while her Eva was a high-end weapon of mass destruction, the Mass Production series were nothing more than knock-offs, like a cheap pair of designer shoes. And she had already destroyed one of them with relative ease—sadly, with Keiko Nagara inside.

But that was only one, piloted by an incompetent crybaby. Even accounting for its loss, there were still eight others in the Mass Production series. Between her and Shinji that meant they would be facing four on one odds.

"Yes," came back the reply from the Sub-Commander. "We are redirecting you to Terminal Dogma for interception. You have to destroy them before they get any deeper."

"Why?" Asuka leaned forward in her seat, barely feeling the tightness of the suit hugging her body. She had to admit, for all its scandalous exposure, it was starting to feel nice. The green disks on its front had begun to glow faintly as soon as she connected to Unit-02. Everything felt lighter, even her own arms and legs. And there was a quiet humming all around her that sounded as though it was coming from inside her head. "What's in Terminal Dogma?"

"There is no time to go into the details, which are quite extensive," the Sub-Commander's voice said. "What you need to know is that we believe the Eva Series was deployed to start Third Impact. You have to stop them."

Asuka nodded to herself. Save the world, right. The grownups could have their secrets; she had a far more important role. One none of them could ever hope to fulfill.

The realization brought a surge of insulating pride, and the fear that had gripped her upon hearing of the Eva Series abated.

Absently, the young redhead stroked the control sticks on either side of her seat. And she thought she could feel Unit-02 stroke her back, the LCL around her growing warmer like a motherly hug. After enduring so much, it was immensely soothing. This was where she belonged. There was nothing to be afraid of.

"But … they're Eva units, right?" Shinji said.

"Yes," Asuka said. "They are the same model as Unit-08."

She cast a glance at the window in the LCL showing the Third Child's handsome face, and she could almost reach out a gloved hand to brush the locks of scattered brown hair from his forehead. His features carried his worry openly, but Asuka had learned that Shinji worried because sometimes it was all he could do. She tried her best not to let it piss her off.

Of course, she knew what this was about—that it wasn't the prospect of fighting the Eva Series that really worried him.

"What about the pilots?" Shinji asked.

"There are no pilots, stupid," Asuka snapped, mildly annoyed that he could be so predictable. "Human beings are too difficult to train to be expendable. The Eva Series was designed to be automated."

Shinji's brow lifted; he didn't seem convinced. "But Keiko—"

"Miss Sohryu is right," the Sub-Commander said over the radio. "Unit-08 was modified for Miss Nagara. There are no pilots in any of these units." There was a pause. "I'm afraid there's nothing more we can do from here. MAGI has been compromised. We are shutting down. There will be no more communications from us for the time being."

Asuka twisted in her seat, causing her hair to billow in the LCL. "What do you mean? What's going on up there?"

"I assure you, Miss Sohryu, we are entirely capable of taking care of ourselves. You have your orders. Once you have destroyed the Eva Series, you are free to dispose of your time as you see fit. We'll find a way to contact you again. Until then, I wish you luck."

The 'Sound Only' window closed, blinking away into the LCL and leaving Shinji and Asuka to look at each other in silence. He seemed more worried than before.

Even though she really wanted to try being a better girlfriend, Asuka just didn't feel like coddling him right before they went into battle, and she hoped he didn't expect her to. That would just be idiotic.

Asuka sighed and leaned back without saying anything. She turned her gaze outside, where the clear canopy of her entry-plug gave her a near perfect view of the dark tunnel Unit-02 and Unit-01 were presently descending.

Whatever was going on in the control room—whatever the Sub-Commander wasn't telling them—Asuka had to admit she probably didn't need to know. She still would have preferred taking on the JSSDF, if only because it would have been easier. But then nothing in her life had ever been easy. Nothing had been given to her.

It was stupid to think this should be any different.

* * *

**Third Movement:**

* * *

Shaking was never a good sign, but the cage, designed and built to contain the Evas, suffered no damage. As soon as it stopped, Misato rose to her knees and got on her cell phone to attempt to contact the children. She had been counting down in her head, estimating the time it would take for the children to reach the surface. The explosion—and if that was the source of the shaking it had to be a massive one—had come before they could make it topside.

When no one answered, Misato removed the phone from her ear and looked down at the screen. The relay had been disconnected. She ended the call then dialed again, to the bridge. As she held up the phone again, Fuuka pressed a hand to her throat.

The American woman had pulled her down to the floor so they would be protected by the safety railings on either side of the gantry. She was kneeling in front of Misato.

"Listen to this."

There was a crackle of static as a hidden speaker in her communication system engaged, followed by what sounded like panicked unit call signs and then …

"... mayday, mayday, mayday. Is anyone out there?"

A much calmer voice replied, "All units be advised. Division command post is unreachable. Hold your positions and await further orders."

"What? What is happening up there?"

The same return message repeated again, and Misato realized it was some kind of automated recording, likely programmed to respond if communications were suddenly lost between elements of 4th Mountain and their headquarters somewhere above them. A contingency.

Fuuka shook head. "This isn't their tactical net. They're broadcasting over an open channel. Doesn't make any sense for them to all of a sudden break radio silence like this." Her eyes narrowed. "Unless they are in trouble."

They did sound like they were in trouble. Military units didn't call maydays just for the fun of it. Before Misato could answer, another voice joined the radio chatter. "Second Brigade, be advised. We've received visual confirmation from second platoon. The Geo-Front has been opened. No communications from Third Brigade. Civilian casualties unknown at this time."

Misato's head jerked upwards, her gaze trying to pierce the concrete and steel of the ceiling as her mind tried to understand the words she had just heard. The Geo-Front had been opened? As in, blown apart? What about all the people overhead? The city? The children?

"I'm sure they are fine," Fuuka said, as if reading the thoughts written upon Misato's worried expression. "There have been no reports of the JSSDF engaging the Evangelions. I think if they were gonna take the risk of broadcasting anything on an open channel, that would be it. No. Whatever just happened hit them as hard as it did NERV."

Misato sank back on her heels, cradling the still-ringing phone in her hands as a new sense of helplessness washed over her. She had done everything she could, and it wasn't enough. Her children were out there risking their lives, and all she could do was sit here without even knowing what might be happening to them.

Then she heard a voice and pressed the phone against her ear. "Yes?"

"Didn't mean to keep you waiting, Major. Things have gotten pretty complicated," Hyuga said hastily. "The Eva Series has been deployed and is on its way to Terminal Dogma. We have diverted the children to intercept."

He went on to explain that they believed the MAGI had been compromised and that the Sub-Commander had ordered it to be shut down. He also confirmed that it had been a huge explosion which had shaken the Geo-Front and opened a hole in the roof. They could not determine the damage done to the JSSDF or provide casualty figures, but the destruction of Tokyo-3 had been near total.

Misato relayed most of the information to Fuuka, who merely nodded almost like she had been expecting such bad news. Misato's first impulse was to head for the bridge. But with the MAGI out of commission there was little anyone could do to affect the battle. And that wasn't where she needed to be, anyway.

Gathering her resolve, Misato signed off and tucked her cell phone back in her pocket. "I'm going to Terminal Dogma," she told Fuuka. "You take care of things up here."

She made to stand, but Fuuka placed a restraining hand on her right shoulder. "That's crazy," she said, her voice low with worry. "You don't know what's happening down there."

"What then?" Misato retorted, brushing Fuuka's hand off. "I can't stay here and just wait to be overrun by the next death squad."

"You may have a point, but rushing off to Terminal Dogma is not thinking with your head. It's thinking with your heart."

Misato stood, checking the straps of the gun harness around her shoulders. "And what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing." Not to be looked down upon, Fuuka rose as well. She was still shorter than Misato, though not by much. And in her combat gear she even seemed intimidating. Her face, soft featured but drawn tightly, was the only thing that remained of the gentle girl she had spent weeks pretending to be. "If what you want is to get killed."

Misato fought the urge to lash out; to point out that Fuuka Sanada, if that was even her real name, was little more than a mercenary, and that she could never understand the way Misato felt about Asuka and Shinji. To Fuuka, they were only another job. They were much more to Misato. And she wasn't going to just sit around while they placed themselves in danger. While _she_ placed them in danger.

She turned and headed down the gantry.

Fuuka rushed alongside her, then in front of her. "At least let me come up with a plan. It's not like we can afford to stay here forever, either. Eventually we'd run out of ammo."

Misato was about to tell her to move aside when a commotion at one of the entrances diverted her attention. She saw Saburo, the soldier Asuka had beaten up in the hall earlier, return to the cage leading another man armed with a rifle but fully clad in NERV's uniform. Behind them came Nakayima and Miko, carrying between them a board that could have been a stretcher. The girl lying on the stretcher, her slender body constrained by straps, thick plastic casts on her right leg and arm, almost made Misato's heart melt with sorrow.

Keiko Nagara hadn't deserved what happened to her any more than Toji Suzuhara had; no more than anyone who piloted Eva. She had pulled through, though no one could really explain how, but seeing her like this struck a cord. It made the guilt Misato had felt after Unit-08 had been torn to pieces emerge once again, buoyed by the knowledge that she, by her orders, had allowed this caring young girl to be so badly injured. It also magnified the responsibility she owed to Asuka and Shinji.

Noticing the group's arrival, Fuuka moved aside. She sighed. "I won't stop you. I'm not your superior." She looked over as Saburo and the man that had come with Nakayima and the others climbed up to the gantry where they stood. Further back, Nakayima and Miko laid Keiko down with the other injured on the platform. Hanako went to check on her. "But just so you know, it does get tiresome. Not being able to think with my heart."

The man with Saburo saluted, but Fuuka dismissed it.

"What do you know, Kenji?"

He filled them in, telling them of the gunfight in Keiko's hospital room, of the murdered staff. Yesterday Misato would have had trouble believing it. Now she would believe anything. She wasn't interested in listening to more death, and still keen to get on her way. She skirted behind Kenji and climbed off gantry.

Nakayima met her at the foot of the ladder, his face lined with concern. "And the children?"

"In their Evas," Misato said, acknowledging him with a nod, but not stopping. "How's Keiko?"

"Scared," Miko answered. Her gaze remained fixed on her ward. The young brunette lay almost exactly in the center of the platform, her blonde guardian and friend kneeling over her and fussing with her hair. A small group of the technicians who could still stand had begun making a circle around them. They parted to let Misato through.

"Well, I'm not _that_ scared," Keiko corrected. She couldn't really move, being strapped to the backboard, but she managed to turn her head slightly as Misato came to her side. "I mean, the first time I was inside Unit-08 I was so terrified I threw up. I haven't thrown up yet."

"Don't underestimate us, kid," Nakayima said, sitting next to her. "We may throw up for you."

Keiko giggled. "That's sweet. Kinda disgusting, though."

Miko didn't share her ward's sense of humor. She remained gloomily silent, absently stroking Keiko's hair from her forehead. Though it was a kind gesture, one which would denote closeness under normal circumstances, Misato found something sad about it. Miko was, in her opinion, the only person here who could relate to what she herself was going through. She had almost lost Keiko, and she cared for her just as Misato cared for her wards.

"What do we do now?" Miko finally spoke, her voice barely a whisper.

What indeed, Misato though. Suddenly, the idea of going after the children and leaving Keiko to her fate seemed wrong. The JSSDF had tried to kill her too. She wasn't even a pilot, and hadn't been for a while. She was nothing more than an injured child, who had spent the last couple of months of her life in a hospital bed. Nothing could be gained by murdering her.

And Fuuka was correct—she was not thinking with her head. She would make it all the way down to Terminal Dogma, and then what? How would she get the children to safety when they were surrounded by enemies on all sides? Surrender was out of the question, as it would likely only end in front of a firing squad. What other options did they have?

"Maybe we can fly out," Fuuka said.

Several heads turned in the American's direction as she climbed down the ladder onto the platform.

Fuuka approached the group, clutching the collar of her bulletproof vest. "Miko, if I remember correctly, the Commander keeps a small VTOL aircraft for his personal use, right?"

The blonde looked up. "Yes. I don't think it has ever been used since he usually charters transports. We have performed maintenance on it from time to time, of course. But no weapons. Access is restricted, but—" she stopped, as if realizing what she was saying. Her eyes widened with something like hope. "My maintenance clearance should be enough to get us into the hangar."

"It won't work," Nakayima said. "The first thing the JSSDF would do is secure the airspace around the city. They'd shoot us down the moment we show up on their radar."

But Fuuka didn't seem so sure. "That's only if they have anything to shoot us down with." She tapped her radio unit. "Whatever they used to blow open the Geo-Front would have wiped the sky clean. The radio is going crazy. With all that confusion, a single small aircraft should be able to get through their lines."

Nakayima raised a hand to stop her. "Wait a second." His thin eyebrows drew together. "Blow open the Geo-Front?"

"Long story," Misato said, giving Fuuka a skeptical look. "Can any of you pilot a VTOL?"

Fuuka shrugged. "Probably."

"You don't sound so sure," Nayakima murmured dourly.

"It's been a while. I'm used to other people flying me around."

Nakayima took a moment. Misato could see him trying to work this over, and she understood why he would be so wary. He, like her, had become quite protective of his loved ones, and would naturally be unwilling to risk their lives on a plan that was just as likely to get them killed as remove them from the battlefield. But she had to admit this might be the only option available to them.

"Where would you go?" Nakayima asked.

Fuuka had an answer ready. "We fly east. Below the radar. I have _Virginia's_ radio codec and transponder information. They'll come up to meet us. Then you can all spend six to eight weeks enjoying some of that hospitality my people are famous for."

As plans went, this one was no different than what Misato had in mind when she met Sato and presented him with Asuka's passport and a request for asylum. The method was much riskier than she would have liked, but the end result was the same. The Americans had already proven to be trustworthy and skilled guardians. And after what she had seen the JSSDF do today …

"Assuming we could get airborne, what about Asuka and Shinji?" For some reason Misato glanced at Keiko as she said their names. "And Rei?"

"I don't know what we can do about Rei," Fuuka said. "We don't have a current location for her. She's likely with the Commander."

"I wouldn't worry too much about Rei," Keiko spoke, and though her voice was very soft it made everyone focus on her as if she had just started screaming. She blushed faintly.

"Do you know something they don't?" Miko said.

"No, not really. But I know she'll find us if she thinks she needs to or it's important to her. And I'm sure this is important. Besides, she promised I would see her again."

Nobody present had the heart to contradict her. Faced with the horror of so much death, it seemed naive, perhaps even foolish, but Misato still hoped Keiko was right.

"As for Asuka and Shinji," Fuuka continued, turning to Misato, "I thought you were working on that."

Locking her gaze with the other woman, Misato and found not the cold steely eyes of a professional killer, but a look of compassion that startled her. She couldn't help wondering if it was just understanding, from one woman on a mission to another, or something deeper.

"Thank you," Misato said.

"No problem." Fuuka waved her had. "I'll send some of my team with you. A little extra firepower never hurt anyone." She paused to smile at the unintended irony, shook her head. "You know what I mean."

The tactical part of Misato's mind knew it was the most reasonable thing to do. But it was also more responsibility, and right now she was burdened with all she could carry.

"We don't know what's happening down there. You said it yourself. There's no guarantee that any of us would be coming back. I have to look after the children. I'm their family. The rest of you have already done more than I could ask."

Fuuka looked at her carefully, and Misato could almost see her mind working. "You are planning on coming back, right?" she finally said.

"If I find them, yes." Misato said. "If not … I don't know."

And she didn't want to think about it. She had to find them, period.

Realizing this wasn't a battle she could win, Fuuka relented. "Alright. We'll secure our transport." The American gestured at herself and the rest of her team, then at Misato. "You go after the children. When you have them, give me a call. I'll come to get you. I don't care if I have to dig up this whole damn place. I'll come."

Misato nodded, though she stopped short of thanking her again. She stepped back and approached Keiko. Miko and Nakayima looked at her, but neither spoke.

Misato knelt by the younger girl's side and took her left hand. "I really hope you are right about Rei." She dropped her head, the weight the moment pushing down on her. "For what it's worth, I'm really sorry I put you through this."

Keiko squeezed her hand gently. "Don't be sorry, Major Katsuragi. It wasn't your fault."

"I will never understand how you can say things like that. I'm glad you don't blame Asuka. She's just a child like you and she ..." Misato caught herself, remembering that Keiko knew nothing of the Emerald Tablet and of what Ritsuko had done to Asuka and Unit-02. "Let's just say Asuka was having a rough time. But me … I am an adult. I knew the consequences when I sent you out there. I knew you weren't ready."

"I won't blame either of you," Keiko replied, a misty glimmer in her eyes. "I won't blame you for putting me out there. And I won't blame Asuka for what happened. I still admire her." She looked at Miko "But I don't envy her. I used to, but not anymore. I think both of us have got something out of this. I found that being hurt doesn't mean being weak, and that being hurt doesn't mean you have to hate the person that hurts you. And Asuka—well, you'll have to ask her."

"That's very mature," Misato said. "Maybe we can ask her together when this is over."

Keiko shook her head. "Oh, I'd advise against it. She would be really, really mad."

Feeling the same kind of fondness for her as she did for her two wards, Misato stooped down and gave Keiko a brief but heartfelt hug. "Yeah, I guess you are right. Asuka loves keeping those things to herself."

Misato wished there was more she could offer, but she already knew the injured girl had found something far more precious than anything she could give her. So had the man looking after her.

"Take care of her," Misato told Nakayima. "And yourself."

He nodded appreciatively. "You too. Good luck."

By the time Misato stood back up, Fuuka had started giving instructions to the gathered technicians, over whom she had no real authority besides her experience. They listened to her, but Misato saw disagreement on some of their faces.

Then, one of the technicians stepped forward. "If it's all the same to you, I think we'll stay here. Our friends and colleagues died to defend this place. It would just feel wrong to abandon it."

"There's nothing to defend here anymore," Misato said, standing next to Fuuka.

"There's always something left to defend," he replied, his face serious, his face both tense and determined.

Others nodded, their expressions equally grim. They had no illusions; they all knew they would likely die if they stayed here. But some kinds of sacrifices just had to be respected, and Misato did not try to dissuade them any further. Then she pulled Fuuka aside so that she could talk to her without being overheard.

"I can't really thank you enough for what you and your people have done for me," she said in an honest voice. "But there's something I want to know before I go. You've risked your life for me and the children, but you haven't even told me your real name."

Fuuka smiled. "I'll tell you the next time I see you."

They shook hands. With luck, they would meet again soon; without … well, there wasn't any point in worrying about it now.

Some sacrifices just had to be respected—Misato was certain Fuuka understood that as well. This was hers. It was something she had to do, not because it was part of any plan, but because her fate lay with the children. And whether they lived or died, she had to be there to share it with them. She belonged at their sides. Nothing anyone could say would change that fact.

Checking her gun again, Misato started heading back the same way she had come, her booted footsteps clanging as she went. She felt no sympathy as she passed the bodies of the black-clad soldiers who had come to kill the children, traitorous men lying strewn across the charred debris. The metal deck was slippery with the empty casings of spent ammunition. Once out in the hallway, she broke into a run.

* * *

Rei hit the floor with a thud, slamming onto her right shoulder and immediately dislocating it. She gasped in pain, and for a moment thought she would pass out. She rolled onto her stomach, her body instinctively trying to lessen the agony flaring up from her shoulder.

But, as she had already done before, Rei again forced herself to her knees. She was used to pain. It was a validation of the fact that she was still alive. That she could make a difference, here and now.

Her narrowed red eyes turned to the boy whose AT Field had sent her flying like a rag doll. He stood there, not moving, equally red eyes focused on her. The black of his garments seemed to merge with the darkness around him, turning him into a shadow. His face was calm, as lacking in emotion as Rei's used to be.

"Stop this," Rei whispered, clutching her right shoulder and feeling the bump where her arm had come out of its socket. She clenched her teeth, but did not look away from him.

The boy watched her.

Slowly, Rei stood again, swaying precariously. Her legs threatened to send her tumbling back onto the hard, harsh concrete but she managed to remain upright. Her small, naked form seemed to glow an eerie white in the darkness.

"Please, stop."

"You are wasting your time," the boy said. "You will only get hurt. And in the end, it will still be for nothing."

"I will not—" Rei winced, taking a step towards him. Her knees wobbled. "I will not let you bring an end to the world. It is not your place to decide."

"You sound as if it is yours?" He reached out his hand. The air around it lit up with concentric octagonal lines, and became like a physical thing.

Rei barely managed to cover her head before the AT Field smashed into her. It was like being hit by a massive, hot wall of pure energy. It lifted her completely off the ground and sent her flying backwards in a gentle arc. She looked up and saw her body above her, her toes clawing at the air as if that could somehow keep her from hitting the ground; then she landed, and all the air was gone from her lungs.

Her bare back took the brunt of the impact, bouncing off the concrete with a sickening noise, rolling, and landing on her stomach again. Her face pressed against the hard concrete, she gasped from a hundred different aches. Her features twisted, a pale mask of suffering. She lay there without moving, struggling to catch her breath. But even through the haze of pain, she heard footsteps coming closer.

"Is this it?" the boy said, his voice taunting as he towered over her, cruel red eyes glowing. "The last defense of humanity is a pretender? I would expect you would have understood that this is not merely unavoidable, it is necessary. I would have expected better from a being such as you."

"I am … better," Rei groaned, struggling to get up, shaking from the effort. Her right arm hung limp and useless by her side.

The boy grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head up.

"Better than what?" he spat. "You were born the same as me. You are capable of all that I am capable. Your AT Field is as powerful as mine. Yet here you are." He pulled back on her hair and made her sit, leaving her slender legs stretched out in front of her. She was like a marionette, guided by an invisible hand, unable to resist. He crouched behind her. "You were so intent on being like them that you never considered it was better to be something else. A god among men, wanting to be like men. Ridiculous."

His gloved hands moved down either side of her face, harsh fingers pressing against her cheeks, slipping among the locks of her short blue hair as he turned her head towards the creature on the cross.

"Do you see? The beginning, and the end. A god, chained by man. That is all the Evangelion has ever been. All you were meant to be. To be controlled. But she had no choice. You did. The mother of all mankind, slain by her own sons." His right hand moved to her neck, fingertips digging roughly into the soft flesh there. "Concentrate. Can you feel them?"

Rei could. At first she thought he meant his fingers, but then there was something else. She felt eight cold presences, as dark as the one behind her. They were all the same, like images seen in a black mirror. There was nothing human about them. Then she felt two others, more familiar. One was a bright red flame, brimming with confidence and a touch of fear. The other was white, bright and hot, decidedly scared. She had felt him near her countless times.

Her heart sank. "N-no ..."

"For all that I am, I cannot kill you," the boy whispered in her ear. "So I will kill what you love. And then you will want me to fulfill my purpose. Like she will want me. Because I will leave you nothing else."

* * *

The shaft through which Unit-01 and Unit-02 descended finally broke open into a wide domed room. Shinji looked around him, taking in the details of a place he had only seen once before, when he fought Unit-02 and Kaworu. Red warning lights cast everything in a dim illumination, reflecting off what seemed like a vast ocean of LCL filling the cavern's floor. Huge pillars of salt rose from the LCL, glinting a crystalline white with a taint of red.

Outside the perimeter of the lights, the darkness had a solid quality to it, as if nothing could possibly exist beyond the red glow. The walls couldn't be seen at all, and, as Unit-01 continued to descend towards the LCL below, the ceiling also vanished. There was no sign of the Eva Series.

"Spooky," Asuka's voice said. "This place is like a vault."

Or a tomb, Shinji thought. He cast his glance at the image of her pretty face, hovering inside the plug with him. She was looking around in awe, blue eyes round, and he remembered she had never been here. She had never seen the creature behind the door.

From what Shinji knew of Terminal Dogma, they were at the very bottom, where NERV's deepest secrets lay hidden. The chamber itself was astronomical; the usually gigantic Evas dangled like toys from the thick steel cables and cross-shaped frames lowering them. It was a long way down. Too long, apparently, for Asuka's patience.

"Releasing locks! Unit-02 in free-fall!"

The large cylindrical bolts holding Unit-02 onto its frame released. The red Evangelion fell the rest of the distance. It tucked its knees against its chest and performed a barrel roll in midair before landing on its feet with a towering splash on all sides. Shinji followed her, releasing the locks. He was less showy than Asuka, though, and settled for just falling.

Unit-01 landed in a crouch next to Unit-02, splashing it with a wall of LCL and sending huge ripples across the LCL ocean. When Unit-01 stood, shoulders slumped forward into its usual slouch, Shinji realized the orange liquid was not as deep as he had first thought, reaching only to mid-thigh. But he could definitely feel its mass around the Eva's legs. It was exactly like wadding in water, and movement took some extra effort.

"Ugh," Asuka groaned. "Just when I thought I'd outgrown the kiddie pool."

Unit-02 turned around, scanning their surroundings and backing up against Unit-01.

"Activating light-enhancement mode."

Shinji had forgotten that he wasn't actually looking at the outside world through a clear canopy, buried as he was in flesh and armor, but a digital representation rendered by the on-board computers. The image could be enhanced and filtered through all variety of functions.

With barely the flick of a thumb, a vertical green line appeared projected inside the entry-plug, sweeping left to right. As it did, ghostly gray shapes seemed to simply materialize from the dark, shifting and vaguely humanoid. One. Two. Three … more and more. All around. A big circle.

They were surrounded.

Shinji's voice cracked. "A-Asuka?"

Her face on the screen was annoyed. "Yes, I see them. I'm not blind." She blew a sigh. "Well, I guess this saves us the trouble of looking for them."

Unit-02's shoulder pylons split open and a prog-knife emerged from each, jutting out on large retractable carriages.

The Eva Series closed around them, tightening their circle, their pointed, eyeless faces tilted so that they looked like dogs, grotesque lips pulled back showing horrific teeth. Shinji had seen a mass production unit before—Keiko Nagara's Unit-08 was one of them—but that couldn't prepare him for all eight of them at once. Each of them held a kind of flat, double-ended spear which to Shinji resembled a meat cleaver, a weapon of sheer brute force. It was pointed, and nearly twice as long as the Evas carrying them were tall.

Shinji knew that other people were depending on him; Misato had placed her hopes on him, and he could feel Asuka's Unit-02 pressing its back against his—for all intents and purposes, it was Asuka's own back. And she could feel him.

But despite that, he was terrified.

The day had turned into an endless string of nightmares, one moment of danger and terror followed by another, with scarcely enough time in between to dwell on them. He wanted nothing else than for it to be over, and to find himself in his bed with Asuka in his arms, her breath against his skin.

Then he remembered he had been utterly terrified the first time Asuka kissed him. So much so, in fact, it had prevented him from even kissing her back. He had been afraid of Rei, too. And Misato, and Toji, and his Father, and everyone else who thought too much of him. But if not for his fear, Asuka wouldn't have suffered. If not for his fear, he would have reached out to Toji, and Rei. Without fear he might have earned the respect and praise of his Father.

Being afraid was one thing, but he had to draw the line between that and what was really important to him.

His hands clenched around the control sticks on either side of him. He turned a determined expression towards Asuka. "Do you have a plan?"

"Hack at them until they die."

And here Shinji was hoping for some tactical masterpiece. He opened the pylons on Unit-01's shoulders. The prog-knives jutted out on their holders. "You are not helping."

"You take four, I take four," Asuka said. "Try to keep them in front of you and we'll have each others' ba—"

The radio crackled, and a second window opened in the LCL above the frame holding Asuka's video feed from inside Unit-02. There was nothing in the new window, not even the usual message indicating an audio feed; it was just a small black rectangle hovering there.

"We meet again." The voice that spoke was smooth and strangely familiar. "I have been awaiting this moment. I have dreamed of it."

Asuka frowned. Her gaze turned slightly upward, to where the black window would have appeared in her own display. "What the hell? Who are you? How did you get into this channel?"

Shinji didn't know how anyone could get into their communication system. If it were easy, the JSSDF would have done it much earlier.

"I am you," the familiar voice said, "and everyone else."

The look that came to Asuka's face struck him like a blow to the chest—it was the same look she had worn when he found her curled up in a ball in her room after crying all night. Her face had fallen, her eyes turning into wide, trembling orbs full of fear and despair and every other hurtful emotion a human being could have.

Shinji's mouth went dry, and he suddenly had a very hollow feeling. "Asuka, what's wrong?"

"Oh , God," Asuka's voice was nearly a whimper. She clamped a hand over her mouth. "No …"

Shinji looked out of the canopy, expecting the Eva Series to attack, but they simply stood there, their wide mouths grinning as though they were laughing at them—at Asuka's overwhelming, inexplicable distress.

"Asuka?"

She had both hands over her mouth now, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Her brow scrunched up, thin eyebrows turning into wrinkled lines. He could hear her breathing over the radio, loud and ragged, almost like sobs, and Shinji thought she would have a nervous breakdown on the spot. Whatever meaning those words had—and he didn't doubt they meant something—terrified her to her very core.

"Asuka." Shinji leaned towards her, urgency raising the pitch of his voice. "Please talk to me."

"It's THAT THING!" Asuka yelled almost hysterically, shrinking back visibly in her seat. "The thing in my head! In my Eva!"

He shook his head desperately. "I don't understand. You aren't making any sense."

"It tried to break me! In my nightmares. In my Eva. And then you were inside Unit-01, and I … it tried to—"

"You were afraid and misguided," the the voice replied. "I merely showed you the truth of your existence. Your mother abandoned you. You were nothing but a silent doll to her. And so you sought comfort in the embrace of someone who would use you."

"Shut up!" Asuka yelled, furiously shaking her head.

"He is listening now," the voice continued. "Do you not want him to know how you feel? Are you afraid he will finally see you for the wounded animal you really are? You hide from yourself. But can you truly say you love him if you hide yourself from him? Do you even love him, or is all you want something hard between your legs so you can feel less empty?"

"Don't talk to her like that!" Shinji cried out. He didn't for a second question Asuka's affection for him, but he was also not an idiot. What existed between them wasn't perfect. It didn't have to be. He would never ask that of her or himself. "You don't know what she's been through!"

"I know. I know more about her than you can ever imagine."

"I said SHUT UP!" Asuka's eyes flew open, and a transformation slowly began to take place.

Where before there had been only fear, Shinji now recognized growing hatred. Her scowl deepened. Her hands moved away from her mouth, revealing a snarl and clenched teeth.

The voice would not stay silent. "He will reject you. I will not. I know you, what drives you, what you are capable of. Like any other animal, you can be taught."

"NO!"

With an explosion of movement, Unit-02 rushed the closest Mass Production Eva unit, LCL splashing around its legs like huge geysers of water. As it did, it reached up, extracting both prog-knives simultaneously from their cradles in opposite shoulders, swinging them in a wide arc. It happened impossibly quickly. Before her target could raise its double-bladed spear, Unit-02 leaped into the air.

"I killed you once!" Asuka screamed, a wild howl of rage, as she brought down both knives on the Mass Production Eva's oval head. "I'll kill you again!"

The white Evangelion crumbled under the weight of Unit-02 as Asuka landed on it, a foot on either side of its slender torso. The long snout burst into a cloud of blood and chunks of flesh as the knife blades ripped through the upper part of the Eva's mouth, causing blood to tumble out like a cascade. When it tried to push Unit-02 away with an arm, Asuka jerked a knife lose and cut that arm off at the elbow in a single powerful stroke. The Eva made an awful noise, like a screeching bird, bleeding from the severed stump in torrents, writhing underneath Unit-02.

But this fight did not happen in a vacuum. From the left and right, two more of the white Evas closed in on Unit-02.

"Asuka!" Shinji charged without thinking, on adrenaline and instinct. He reached up for one of the knives on his own shoulder, LCL splashing around him. He was no less than halfway to Unit-02 when he caught movement to his right.

He turned up his head just in time to see one of the mass production Evas hanging in the air, its spear poised to strike down on him. He pivoted on his right foot, sending Unit-01 into a roll in the opposite direction, plunging into the LCL. Suddenly, he was beneath the surface, glimmering orange space all around him. The blade of the spear descended next to him, flat like the side of a building, burying itself into the concrete floor.

His momentum carried him away from it, and he was back on his feet with almost no effort. Shifting his weight, he lunged back, towards the mass production Eva. Before the white monster could turn to face him, Shinji's prog-knife blade had buried itself beneath a shoulder, cutting down into the torso, through armor and flesh. Blood gushed out, swallowing the blade and Unit-01's hand. The Eva shrieked in pain.

Throwing out Unit-01's left hand, Shinji grabbed the other Eva's snout. He yanked back on it, causing the things head to snap backwards. At the same time, he kept the pressure on the knife. His arm muscles burning, he jammed his knee against the thing's back, and heard the crunch of its spine giving out. It stopped struggling. Shinji let it go, but before he could watch it sink into the LCL, he was forced to dodge a second spear that seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Of course, it didn't come out of nowhere, and Shinji found himself confronted by a second mass production unit, grinning at him. He stepped back, turning aside another swing of the spear with his knife.

To his left, Asuka had managed to close in on another Eva, spinning and letting its own momentum throw it off-balance as it tried to bring up its weapon against her. The wide, heavy spear was clumsy and slow to move, and Unit-02 easily avoided it. Still wielding both of her prog-knives, she made short work of the Eva's arms, lopping both of them off in coordinated strokes that were as graceful as they were violent, one at the elbow and the other at the middle of the forearm. The Eva recoiled, screaming and flailing its stumps. The spear splashed into the LCL, detached hands still grasping it.

Asuka had no time to finish it off. Almost immediately she was set upon again by another of the menacing Evas. She kicked the disarmed unit away, Unit-02's foot cracking armor and bones, and turned, parrying a spear blow with both knives, the vibrating blades sizzling and sending a shower of sparks in every direction.

The distraction almost cost Shinji his neck. Something spoke in the back of mind, and before he could realize it he snapped his head around as white arms swung a spear at him from behind. In the same second, the Eva he had been keeping in front of him lunged, sweeping a wide destructive arc aimed at his chest.

He jumped from between on sheer instinct, narrowly avoiding the attacks. The two Evas came within feet of colliding with each other, their unwieldy blades clanging as they made contact.

Unit-01 flipped in the air and landed on its feet, momentum causing it to slide as if the concrete floor were made of ice. Shinji braced himself with an arm and Unit-01 ended up in a three-point stance, its head raised towards the two incoming Evas.

"Thanks," he whispered to Unit-01. His heart was beating like a hammer inside his chest, which felt incredibly tight. His breathing came as a loud pant. The twin rows of sensor disks on the front of his see-through suit were now glowing a bright incandescent red.

A third mass production Eva joined the others. A wall of white armor and teeth and spears now stood between Unit-01 and Unit-02. Shinji began backtracking, knowing that he couldn't fight three of them at once.

Behind their shoulders, Shinji could see Asuka, like a skilled dancer, dodging and parrying the much larger, much deadlier spear of her opponent. He was improvising on the spot, desperately trying to stay alive, but she seemed to have every move calculated, thinking ahead and making circles around the clumsy Evangelion.

The large spear was almost impossible to control with any precision, and it clearly would have taken more skill than these Eva units possessed. The sweeps and swings became disjointed and uncoordinated, like someone trying to hit a fly with a baseball bat. It was only a matter of time before Asuka found an opening.

"Shinji, they are trying to separate us!" Asuka yelled. She crossed the blades of her knives, bringing them together at the hilt. The next time her opponent took a swing at her, she caught it between the joined blades.

"You are already separated," the voice said. "Your hearts. Your minds. They will never be one. You will never know what it is like to be joined with another. Unless you relent."

"You talk too much!"

Using her crossed blades to grip her opponent's weapon, Asuka forced it to the side with a push of Unit-02's arms, grunting from the effort. She planted her right foot forward and spun, turning both knives in her palms so that the blades faced down, towards her forearms. As the mass production Eva stumbled backwards it moved into the path of Asuka's spin. It was still struggling with its balance when she shoved both knife blades into its spine. One of the blades, firmly lodged between an armored plate and the back of the skull, snapped.

As the limp white form slipped beneath the LCL, its disarmed twin again approached Unit-02. Asuka didn't even bother. Unit-02's right shoulder pylon opened wider and ejected a deadly stream of sharp metal spikes. Impaled from its midsection to its snout and thrown back by the force of multiple impacts, it crumbled into the LCL, only the severed stumps of its arms remaining above the surface.

Asuka spat, then wiped a forearm over her mouth. Then Unit-02 picked up one of the fallen spears from the carnage and rushed towards Shinji, LCL splashing around its legs.

Unit-01 was still moving back, now surrounded by the remaining four mass production Evas, their grins wide as ever. He held the prog-knife in front of him, but it felt like little comfort. For some inexplicable reason, the Evas refused to charge him.

"Do you not understand?" the voice said. "She would do anything for you. She would kill anyone. Yet you will only hurt her. Always, you will hurt her. Your words. You actions. Even your thoughts. Even when you don't mean to. You will hurt her. It is what you do."

Shinji couldn't help the sting in his chest that followed the words. "I won't hurt her. I promised I wouldn't!"

"Shinji, don't listen to it!" Asuka shouted.

With a swing of the spear, Unit-02 cleaved through the line of Evas between her and Shinji. The nearest unit shrieked as a powerful downward stroke buried the bladed weapon diagonally from the right shoulder to the narrow torso, almost cutting it in half. The shoulder ripped away, tearing the flesh in a huge bloody gash.

Tugging the spear lose from the sinking carcass, she swung it horizontally at the next Eva to her left. "YAAAHH!"

The slim torso posed no resistance as the heavy blade cleaved straight through it, sending the upper body tumbling and spraying blood in midair even as the severed legs collapsed into the LCL. The next Eva at least managed to bring up its spear and parry Asuka's, but she used her superior speed and momentum, and in a heartbeat had batted the defense aside. But before she could deliver the killing blow, the last remaining unit closed in, its weapon raised.

Shinji reacted instantly, throwing Unit-01 forward and tacking the mass production Eva around the waist, shoving it into the LCL. He couldn't see his target, but he could feel its body pressed under him. Still clutching his prog-knife, he stabbed with the humming blade repeatedly until it stopped moving.

By then Asuka had finished the other Eva, a blow to the head doing the job. The Eva Series had been destroyed.

Shinji took a deep, calming breath. He straightened up, and Unit-01 did the same, straddling the fallen body beneath it. He felt a gentle hand land on his shoulder and lifted his head to find Unit-02 standing over him.

"You okay?" Asuka asked, her voice badly hoarse.

He nodded, knowing Unit-01 would relay the gesture. Then he looked around. Crumpled, mangled humanoid bodies protruded above the surface like small islands. He was suddenly repulsed that he was capable of such destruction, and yet there was also pride. They had survived. Him and Asuka together.

Unit-02 placed its hands on its hips. "Only two out of a possible eight. That's pretty bad, even for such a talentless idiot," Asuka said. "But I guess it could have been worse. You should count yourself lucky I'm on your side."

The radio crackled.

A single hand shot out of the LCL and clamped around Unit-01's throat. Shinji barely managed to utter a choked whimper as his air supply was cut off. Then next thing he knew Unit-01 was being pulled down, beneath the surface. His vision outside the entry-plug became clouded by curtains of bubbles, but when they cleared, through an orange haze, he saw he was face to face with the mass production Eva's long snout.

Asuka was yelling, frantically trying to tug him away from it. He heard a muffled sound as the flesh on the Eva's oblong head began to blister and erupt, like it was being forced out from within. Four slits appeared, arranged in pairs of two on either side. Then the slits parted, revealing four round, bright blue eyes.

Shinji stared in frozen horror. His heart seemed to stop.

Even through the tint of the LCL he recognized that color and those eyes—that uncanny electric blue. They were there when he went to bed at night, and the first thing he saw in the morning. He loved those eyes. Asuka's eyes.

He was still staring as the white chevron-like plates on the Eva's chest armor cracked and opened with a crunching sound like bones breaking. A single dark sphere protruded from the broken armor amidst rising columns of bubbles as the LCL around it seemed to reach a boiling point.

The Eva's exposed core began to glow, spreading its heat to Shinji through Unit-01. There was a flash. And Shinji heard himself scream a split second before everything vanished into light.

* * *

Even the cicadas had gone quiet. As Hikari looked around and took in the scope of the devastation, that was what struck her the most.

Behind her, other students began cautiously emerging from the shelter they had been crowed into after the alert—oddly not issued by NERV as they usually were when under angel attack, but by the JSSDF itself. She didn't know how long ago that had been. It felt like days, but likely it was only hours.

Hikari had done this a hundred times. She knew exactly where to go and what to do. She knew they were supposed to stay in the shelters until the alert was cleared. They would be informed via the city-wide public address system of the situation, and, with a little luck, they'd be able to return to their school, their class, and their lives. But something had gone wrong. There had been a huge explosion, powerful enough to cause part of the underground shelter to collapse, injuring several students and killing two.

There was nothing after that. No radio bulletins, no emergency television broadcast, not even military announcements over the speakers. Nothing. It was as if the world outside had suddenly stopped being.

Hikari was a worrywart—Asuka had made sure to chastise her for it several times. But as someone who put a great deal of stock in respect and propriety, she couldn't help that in her nature. She liked things to be orderly, to follow a predictable pattern that allowed her to feel safe and content and in control. Days like today were the stuff of her nightmares. She'd thought she had gotten used to the alerts, and to the fact that every time they happened someone she knew or cared about ended up getting hurt. But actually witnessing two students being crushed by a falling ceiling had been the first time she saw someone die. And she couldn't help thinking of Asuka and Shinji and Rei, of the horrible things they had been through, of Toji and Keiko.

Death seemed to have brought all of it back, all at once. She had not bothered asking permission to leave the shelter. After sitting there quietly, her fear for her friends eating away at her, she had gotten up and sneaked outside, up a series of stairs to ground level.

The sky had turned an ashen gray. The air was thick with gray flakes, drifting lazily onto everything like snow. It hadn't snowed in Japan for fifteen years. Hikari had never seen it. She opened her mouth and let some of the flakes settle on her tongue. They tasted like concrete.

The streets all around her were empty, eerily quiet, and even the electronic sign denoting the location of the shelter below had stopped working. Every window she could see had been blown out, the buildings appearing like burned out husks; glass lay scattered on the roads and sidewalks, mixing with the concrete snow. There were empty cars, empty shops, everything empty.

And the silence … had everyone simply vanished?

"Hikari?" Kensuke whispered quietly behind her. "Why you don't you come back inside?"

She turned to him, saw the worried expression on his face. She didn't say anything. She hadn't said anything for a while. He approached her slowly, his shoes making a crunchy sound as he stepped across the pavement, leaving footprints in the gray dust and glass. The sound seemed to echo, magnified by the silence. He took her gently by the arm.

It was then Hikari understood he was worried for her. "I'm fine," she told him. "I just need to find Shinji and the others."

"No, you are not. You are shell-shocked."

Hikari shook her head. "I … I just …"

"Come on." He tugged her gently. "Asuka and Shinji have their Evas. I'm sure they've got things under control. You know we can't go anywhere until they clear the alert. And we need you inside. You know first aid."

Did she? Hikari couldn't remember.

Miho stepped in, her long black hair already becoming saturated by the dust. "What do you think Asuka would say if she saw you like this?"

Hikari found the statement rather ironic since Miho and Asuka had never gotten along. They were, ever since the redhead had come out of the hospital all those months ago, bitter rivals. Asuka was more likely to slap Miho in the face than go anywhere with her. But then, Asuka had never gotten along with Keiko either, and now they were actually friends. Hikari wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen the two of them together in Keiko's hospital room. Rei had been there, too, quiet as always.

But Miho was right. What would Asuka think of her if she saw her like this? In her mind, Hikari could hear the redhead's haughty voice telling her she was being stupid and that others needed her. As the Class Representative, it was her duty to help.

She had already made up her mind to go back with them, but a noise somewhere down the street stopped her. They all turned, peering into the gray mist as a group of ghostly figures materialized, walking towards them.

"Identify yourselves," someone called.

"We are students from Sengokuhara Junior High School, class 2-A," Hikari answered almost automatically, moving away from Kensuke and Miho to receive the new arrivals. "Who are you?"

As they came close, the question became rhetorical. Hikari saw military uniforms and weapons slung over shoulders. There were four of them; their faces were hidden by gas masks. The round lenses resembled large circular eyes, giving the human figures an otherworldly look that matched their surroundings perfectly. Kensuke needlessly pointed the uniforms out, as if Hikari couldn't see them for herself. Then he identified the rifles as some type or other.

"We didn't think there was anyone left in this part of the city," one of the soldiers said, approaching Hikari, Miho and Kensuke while the other soldiers joined the remaining students, who were now crowding around them like lost sheep. "How many of you are there?"

Standing in front of them, he was much taller and more intimidating than he had first seemed.

"From my class, sixteen. From the school, close to a hundred, I think. The teachers have class-by-class tallies. There's, um, two dead."

The words left a bitter taste in Hikari's mouth, like she was reducing two people's lives—students she had known—to just numbers.

The soldier removed the mask. Even through the layers of caked gray dust and the lines of weariness, Hikari recognized a hint of surprise on his face. "If you have teachers, why are you wandering around on your own?"

Hikari was suddenly ashamed of her behavior. "I …"

He waved off her answer. "Nevermind." He checked a piece of paper taped to his left wrist, then pulled a pencil from a pocket in his vest and wrote something down. "Sengokuhara. That means shelter number 67, correct?" He turned back to Hikari, who nodded. "There is a standing evacuation order for all civilians. No one is supposed to stay in the city. Triage and hazmat stations are being set up. They will take the wounded. The rest of you will come with us for special processing."

Hikari and Kensuke exchanged a heavy glance. "What do you mean?" Kensuke said, his voice rising. "What's 'special processing'?"

"It's classified. What's your name, miss?"

"Horaki Hikari."

He wrote her name down on his wrist. "Hikari, get everyone together and assemble with your teacher. If any of you have handkerchiefs, put them over your nose and mouth." He gestured around him. "Breathing in this stuff can't be good for you." Evidently the other soldiers had instructed their classmates to do the same. The gaggle of students was now going through their pockets and tying handkerchiefs around their faces.

Hikari, Kensuke and Miho followed suit.

"I bet it's not good for your skin, either," Miho griped. "So much for moisturizing."

Hikari scowled at her as she finished tying her handkerchief around the back of her neck and tugged it down to cover her nose and mouth. But something about the pointless vanity inevitably reminded her of Asuka.

"Good. Now go on." The soldier turned his back and raised his voice. "Shiro, go with her and secure the bodies. I want positive IDs."

Another soldier trotted over to them. He was shorter than the first and didn't remove his mask to greet them.

"Wait," Hikari rushed to say, her concern finally getting the better of her. She stepped around the short soldier and addressed his superior. "We have friends inside the Geo-Front. Have you heard anything about what's happening there?"

He looked her over, not so much with impatience as with suspicion. Hikari found it strange, but she did her best to hide that fact from him. She also regretted asking the question.

"If your friends are smart they'll keep a low profile. Heroes don't usually make it out alive."

* * *

Unit-01 hit something, and Shinji's head snapped back. The world seemed to spin around him, and only when it settled and he began to feel the pain in his arms did he realize he was still conscious. Without any thought on his part, Unit-01 had brought up its arms to shield itself—and him—from the mass production Eva's blast. The purple armor on its forearms was melted away, revealing the brown flesh underneath. It was smoking.

To Shinji, it felt as if someone had tried to burn his skin. The blast had been strong enough to toss Unit-01 as far back as the nearest wall, which Shinji realized wasn't a wall at all. He was embedded into it, the area around Unit-01's body caved in, looking as if he had smashed into a metal slab.

A metal door.

"Shinji! Are you still there?" Asuka yelled over the radio. "Answer me, damn you!"

"Y-yeah," he groaned. "I'm okay." Unit-01 lowered its arms, allowing Shinji to see Unit-02 standing a few hundred yards in front of him. Asuka had again retrieved one of the spears and was holding it aloft, placing herself between him and the Eva Series.

Shinji stared, his breath catching in his aching chest. One after the other, the mangled remains of the mass production units rose from the LCL, curtains of the orange liquid pouring from severed stumps and deep lacerations. They were like walking corpses coming out of their graves. All of their cores were exposed, sets of four blue eyes on their featureless faces.

Asuka cursed, backing away. Shinji could not even manage that much. His mute, terrified gaze swept across the surreal scene in front of him. He heard a gurgling noise as the blunt stumps on the units which were missing limbs bulged out into pustular brown masses. And then the severed limbs regenerated.

Shinji clenched his teeth, fighting back the urge to curse. Then something hissed behind him, and Unit-01 was suddenly falling backwards, splashing down into the LCL like a massive tree, sinking almost instantly to the bottom. He pulled hard on his control sticks, making his Eva sit up.

As Unit-01's head and shoulders re-emerged above the surface, Shinji caught a glimpse of Asuka swinging the spear at the mangled forms of Eva Series, now on the other side of what appeared to be a doorway. They lunged at her in turns, testing her defenses. She had none of it. Severed brown arms were soon flying through the air, spraying geysers of dark blood. It took only a few seconds to grow them back—nearly as fast as Asuka could cut them off.

Apparently deciding that it was best to attack after all, Asuka rushed straight at the combined numbers of the Eva Series, roaring like a mad lion, the spear swirling in broad, cleaving arcs around her. The Eva Series hissed and howled. LCL splashed everywhere.

Shinji brought Unit-01 to its feet. He didn't need to look around to realize he had fallen into a new room but he did anyway. To his right, he saw a huge white creature, its face an inverted triangle with seven eyes, nailed to a red cross. It was humanoid, but the proportions were wrong. Beneath the creature was a concrete platform that filled the opposite side of the room. And on the platform he saw two faces—faces he knew.

And one of those faces belonged to someone he had lost, someone whom he had wished countless times he could meet again, someone he missed very much.

He must have been dreaming. It couldn't be true. And yet there it was: that tousled mop of white hair, those glimmering red yes. His heart swelled, tears of joy flooding his vision.

"Kaworu!"

Shinji rushed to his friend, LCL sloshing around Unit-01's legs. Every other concern seemed to vanish from his mind. But only when he was within arm's reach did Shinji realize something wasn't quite right. Kaworu was dressed in the same black military uniform worn by the soldiers who had earlier tried to kill Asuka and him. He was kneeling behind Rei, who sat naked on the platform, his hand around her throat. Shinji locked eyes with her and noticed her fear and distress, transmitted to him through the Eva's simulated canopy as clearly as if he were standing right there with her.

Looming over them, casting them in Unit-01's shadow, Shinji flicked his thumb over his control stick, activating the Eva's outside speakers and microphone. "K-Kaworu?" his voice quivered. "Is that really you?"

The white-haired boy fixed him with a glare. His eyes were all wrong. The tenderness Shinji remembered just wasn't there. In its place was a kind of primordial malice. His lips moved, and the voice, when it came, was emotionless yet familiar.

"Shinji Ikari. We finally meet face to face. I have heard much about you."

Shinji shook his head.

It didn't make sense. None of it did. Why were they here? Why was Kaworu talking like he had never met Shinji before? Why did he sound like that? Kaworu had died, hadn't he? By Shinji's own hand. He had died, and left a gaping wound behind.

"Shinji," Rei whispered, her voice weak and pained. "He is not who he seems."

Shinji swallowed a growing lump in his throat, the overwhelming joy at seeing Kaworu quickly tapering off in sudden uncertainty. "Kaworu, what's going on?"

"Do not call me that," the voice said. "The being you knew as Kaworu Nagisa is dead. I have his body, but it is just a shell. My mind is my own."

Shinji had heard similar words before, from Rei Ayanami herself: 'I am not her. I share her name, but not the other things attached to it. Because I am not her.' It had been so difficult to draw a line between the two girls. But at least he had seen the bodies. How could there be another Kaworu?

Then Asuka screamed.

Eyes going wide, Shinji turned Unit-01 around just as Unit-02 came rolling through the open door. It vanished beneath the LCL and when it stood again Shinji saw there was huge gash on its right flank. The spear was gone, and now the red Evangelion had only its hands to defend herself. The Eva Series poured through the door after it, a mass of hissing mouths and sharp teeth, some of them with spears and some without. Their multiple blue eyes glowed as if lit from within.

Shinji looked at the window showing Asuka's face; she was wincing in pain, but her expression was furious. "Hold on!"

He took a step towards Unit-02.

The air around Unit-01 suddenly seemed to grow heavy, slowing it down. Thin streaks of rainbow-colored light appeared to cling to Unit-01's arms and torso as it moved, and the air itself distorted, like ripples in water.

Then Unit-01 came to a stop altogether, frozen. The streaks bent, enveloping the purple Evangelion, thousands of bindings made of shimmering light. Inside the entry-plug, Shinji could still move. He didn't understand what was happening. He tugged urgently at the control sticks on either side of him.

Nothing moved.

Shinji could only stare as Unit-02 charged the closest mass production Eva, its pilot roaring like a mad woman. Asuka was impossibly quick, and before her opponent could bring up its spear she had smashed into it, sending both of them tumbling into the LCL. Unit-02 planted its right foot on the fallen Eva, which was now on its back. Pushing the spear away with a hand, Unit-02 grabbed an arm with the other. And pulled.

The sound of tearing flesh was sickening even over Asuka's furious bellow. Shinji saw the brown skin and muscles of the thing's right arm rip almost like rubber, a small white stump hinting at the broken bone among the formless masses of flesh.

But for all her brutality, Asuka took too long. Three more mass production models had closed on her from three sides. Shinji lunged forwards, willing Unit-01 to move, to come to Asuka's aid. She needed him. More than ever, she needed him. Unit-01 wouldn't budge. The ribbons of light—Shinji now recognized them as some kind of AT Field—tightened, holding Unit-01 firmly in place.

"I will not allow you interfere," Kaworu's voice said.

Shinji whipped his head around, back towards Kaworu and Rei on the concrete platform. "Kaworu … "

"Do not call me that, stupid boy." Kaworu let go of Rei and stood behind her. He grabbed Rei's hair, yanking her head upwards, forcing her to look at Shinji. "The only reason you are still alive is because I wanted her to see. And you will see."

"Why are you doing this?" Shinji found his voice trembling, betraying his fear. "I don't understand. We were friends."

"I am not your friend!" the voice yelled, showing emotion for the first time. "I hate you. I hate that she chose you over me. And you will watch as I reclaim what is mine. I was one with her. I shared her mind. You could never give her that. I will unite with her, and then there will be no more boundaries. Eight is not enough. She will be my ninth."

Unit-02 spun, swinging the severed arm like a club, smashing one of the incoming Eva units across the head. It teetered sideways, losing its balance. Still spinning, Asuka chucked the arm at yet another of her attackers. The limb hit squarely on the chest and bounced off harmlessly. Then Unit-02 extended its hands, palms out, and Asuka extended her AT Field. The air sizzled with energy, and the three attacking Evas stumbled backwards, splashing into the LCL.

It was a desperate fight, and one she clearly couldn't win.

The first mass production unit had already regenerated its arm. It rose up, shoulders slouched, its movements overtly exaggerated as it drove the spear forward into Unit-02's AT Field.

"Asuka, look out!"

Unit-02 turned just in time, extending its AT Field. A wall of concentric octagonal lines flashed in front of the spear. The massive weapon embedded itself in the AT Field, but it didn't penetrate it. The air trembled with projected energy. Asuka groaned from the effort. And slowly, so very slowly, the spear moved back.

And then it changed; the metal—or whatever it was made out of—seemed to twist on itself, melting into two long prongs that resembled an oversized cooking fork. The prongs spiraled together into a handle, creating a shape Shinji had seen before.

He heard Asuka gasp in surprise as the prongs easily pierced her AT Field. The spear flew forward, unstoppable, and impaled the left side of Unit-02's face.

The scream that followed was so terrifying and blood-chilling that it took a full second after impact for Shinji to realize it was Asuka's.

* * *

A single spike of agony exploded inside Asuka's head, as if a giant nail had been driven into her eye socket with a sledgehammer. She felt the pressure from the feedback, far beyond anything she had experienced before, and an instant later felt her left eyeball burst like a crushed egg. The pain was unbearable. Her head jerked back, her left hand reaching up instinctively to clutch at the wound, her body arching violently in her seat, writhing, trying uselessly to escape the pain.

She didn't recognize her own scream. She didn't know that she could make such a horrible sound. But she knew it was hers. She heard Shinji crying her name, over and over. The spear had gone all the way through Unit-02's head. Then, as the spear was forced down, Unit-02 arched backwards, until it was stopped by the spear tips jamming into the floor. The red Evangelion became impaled by its head.

Blood flowing from beneath her gloved hand and down the left side of her face, Asuka gritted her teeth and willed back the pain. Using her remaining eye, she looked outside Unit-02's simulated canopy and saw she was surrounded, white menacing shapes closing in all around her. She grasped the control stick tightly on her right side and pushed it frantically up. Unit-02's right arm jutted out, catching one of the encroaching mass production Evas by the throat, holding it at bay.

The inside of her entry-plug was hot and stifling, alarms beeping loudly from her main console demanding attention. Her synch-ratio was sky high—much too high. There was a price to pay for that: she was one with Unit-02, and whatever they did to it they were doing to her.

The Eva Series clustered around her. Their wide mouths, some of which were missing quite a lot of teeth, curled up into grotesque grins. Their snouts were mangled and misshaped, the result of her assaults. Although they had regenerated, most of them had lost a limb to her. And there was nothing she could do. She couldn't move. Unit-02 was pinned and defenseless.

Out of the corner of her one eye she saw Unit-01 standing there like a statue, not moving, not coming to her aid. She didn't understand. Nothing made sense anymore. And for the first time since her mother died, Asuka truly felt like a frightened little girl—a toddler,crying and clutching a stuffed toy for comfort. She realized that she had always been that girl. No matter how much she had grown up, or how strong and brave she had become, she had always been afraid. Her whole life.

And now it was too late. The future she had imagined with Shinji would never happen. She had run out of time after all. She had lost.

That made her angry. She didn't want to lose. She didn't want to die. More than anything, she didn't want to die.

"Mama," Asuka called out.

Unit-02 groaned. It moved on its own. Asuka felt the muscles on its back tense as it tried to straighten up, heard the vertebrae and armored plates strain from the effort. The spear wouldn't budge, wedged as it was into the cavern's concrete floor, the other end held firmly by a mass production unit. She simply had no leverage.

In a final, desperate bid for self-preservation, Asuka extended her right arm towards Unit-01 … to Shinji. Unit-02 mimicked her.

Then a mouth appeared out of nowhere, the jaws closing around Unit-02's outstretched forearm and clenching. Asuka screamed again as she felt the bones in the arm crushing. Suddenly there were hands all over her, crawling over her body, grabbing her, opening her, just like in one of her nightmares. She realized they were actually grabbing Unit-02. Asuka couldn't tell how many were around her; they seemed to be everywhere. She kept her eye on Unit-01's frozen form.

The hands tightened, grabbing Unit-02's armor around the chest, torso and shoulders, and began ripping the armor off. Asuka's mouth shot open into a scream. It felt as if her skin was being peeled off from her flesh. And as she screamed, she writhed, rolling violently from side to side in her seat in a hopeless attempt to wring herself lose. She planted her feet on the console and pushed, forcing her body into an arch. The armor was slowly stripped away, leaving only Unit-02's brown flesh underneath. Then hundreds of teeth sank into her as the Eva Series bit down on the exposed flesh from all sides. Burning pain spread outwards from the bites.

Within moments something began protruding from the cylindrical walls of her entry-plug, resembling black vein-like tendrils. Even in her state she knew Unit-02 was being contaminated. The dark tendrils moved in, a cancerous growth reaching out to her, converging from the wall and over the sides of her seat.

Asuka tried to recoil, but it made no difference. They touched her and almost instantly began eating into her suit, digging into her flesh, spreading over her body slender body. One by one, the glowing sensor disks burned out.

Her single blue eye was wide and trembling, her once pretty face twisted and distorted in agony, her mouth gaping as she screamed, saliva running down her chin. Feeling the tendrils writhe inside of her, she dared not look down at herself for fear of what she might see through the transparent material of her suit. She was on fire, like being melted alive by acid. She heard Shinji shouting for her through the radio, and her own screams rose up to match him.

"You will not reject me again," a shrill voice said. It sounded like a younger version of her own. She couldn't tell if it was coming from the radio or inside her head.

The tendrils moved up, twisting inside of her, crawling up her spine as her long legs continued shoving and kicking uselessly against her console. But finally Asuka understood what was happening. It could have killed her already if it wanted to. It didn't. Like before, it meant to break her. For whatever reason, it wanted her alive.

There was only one thing Asuka could do now. She squeezed her remaining eye shut, her face a twisted snarl, every muscle in the young body tight, and she resisted.

The tendrils continued moving, pounding into her skull, invading her, violating her in every way that a human being could be violated. Her world turned to pain.

But she resisted.

* * *

Inside Unit-01's entry-plug, Shinji was going crazy. Asuka's screams filling his ears, he pushed and pulled frantically at the Eva's control sticks. He couldn't think anymore. He didn't care that Kaworu was there—it was obvious now this wasn't the same boy he had befriended. All that he knew was that he needed to save Asuka.

"Please move!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, as much to Unit-01 as to himself. He felt the ribbons holding down Unit-01 beginning to exert pressure on his own limbs. They were like wires digging into his flesh.

Outside, Shinji saw that the areas where the Eva Series were biting Unit-02 had become a dark black. It looked as if the skin had begun to bubble, like it was being boiled. Thick black drool poured from their mouths, seeping into the wounds made by the jagged teeth. The black taints extended slowly, covering more and more of the exposed flesh, resolving into a vein-like pattern at the edges. There were six of the white Evangelions around the disarmed red one, biting it and holding it down.

Asuka struggled, but she was impaled by the head and there was nothing she could do. A part of Shinji was relieved that the video feed from her entry-plug had faded into static—he didn't want to see the images that went with such a horrific scene. But he could still hear her.

He had to do something. Frustration, anger, and desperation all mounted. He continued yanking violently at the sticks. When he couldn't take the sight of Unit-02 being contaminated anymore, he shut his eyes. Then he felt the tears running down his cheeks.

Kaworu—or whoever it was—spoke again, "Why do you resist?"

"Get away from me!" Asuka screamed, her voice barely recognizable.

Shinji's heart sank in his chest.

"I do not wish to hurt you," the voice replied. "I want to be one with you. My mind is meant to be shared—I cannot achieve my purpose alone. I am meant to join with others. But there is only one who I want to share myself with. I have felt your pain. All your life you have been alone and in pain. I wish to relieve you of that suffering. Why is that so bad?"

"You fuck!" The ragged edge of anger was audible even over the pain in Asuka's voice. "I will never share anything with you! I hate you!"

"Why resist? What does he have that I lack? He can never truly make you happy. And you know it. In the end, you will be alone. I will always be with you, and you will never be alone again."

"I would rather be alone! You don't know me! You don't understand me! You are just a thing!"

"No," the voice said, and Shinji could plainly hear the emotion in it now. Kaworu's soft drone had vanished, and in its place was anger. "I do understand. I understand that humans cannot know the depth of their own suffering. You live in denial, and derive happiness from your ignorance. I will release you from your delusion."

"Get away from me!" Asuka was screaming again. "Mama, make him stop! He's hurting me!"

"She abandoned you. You have spent your entire life trying to heal the wounds she left behind. Trying and failing. You cannot be happy as long as her memory haunts you."

Shinji heard a crunching sound. His eyes opened and he saw the Eva Series were lifting Unit-02's mangled body, supporting it with their arms and keeping it clenched in their mouths. One of them gripped the shaft of the spear and slowly began to pull it out. Unit-02 struggled feebly. It's right arm was clearly shattered. With most of its upper armor removed, its dark spherical core lay exposed.

As the prongs of the spear slid free, leaving two huge punctures on the left side of Unit-02's head, blood poured out in a geyser. At least one of its two left eyes was completely gone, and the other hung by a thread of muscle tissue. The red Evangelion could no longer stand on its own.

Shinji stared in horror. The mass production Eva held the spear aloft … then, with immense force, drove it down against Unit-02's core. Asuka screamed, a ragged howl of agony. The twin spear tips buried themselves into the hard surface, cracking the core. Somehow, it did not collapse.

Shinji gripped his control sticks so tightly it hurt and shoved them forwards as hard as he could. "Please move!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, tears streaming down his face. "Please!"

Unit-01 pitched forward, straining the bonds holding it in place. The ribbons cut into its armor, shredding it and causing pieces of it to fall off. Shinji felt them on his own body. The pain was excruciating. But he didn't care. His face was wild, his wide open eyes fixed on Unit-02 and Asuka as the mass production Eva extracted the spear, leaving behind two small holes. The Eva raised the spear again, slowly, as if to allow its victim time to realize what was happening to her.

"Stop!" Asuka cried as Unit-02 feebly tried to raise its left hand. "Stop! You'll kill her!"

The spear came down again, the twin prongs penetrating Unit-02's already damaged core. The mass production unit twisted its hands around the narrow shaft, causing a forest of spikes to spring up seemingly out of the solid material, impaling its hands. Black blood flowed thickly from the wounds and ran down the length of the spear shaft, pouring over Unit-02's core and spreading over the spherical surface in a cloud of smoke like acid. The core's surface began to warp, growing swollen as the corruption sent black tendrils crawling all over it … and into it.

Asuka did not stop screaming.

"I will save you," Kaworu's voice said. "From her and from yourself. You are broken inside. I will make you whole again."

Shinji frantically pulled on the control sticks and Unit-01 moved slowly forward. The circular sensors on his suit glowed red hot. Emergency sirens blared inside the entry-plug. "Please move!"

One by one, the rainbow ribbons began to snap as their individual AT Fields collapsed. The air sizzled with energy and power, shimmering. The LCL around him began to bubble like water in an overheated cooking pot, boiling.

The ribbons finally ripped; Unit-01 lunged. Shinji instinctively put up his hands. The bright octagon patterns of an AT Field appeared in mid-air, pressing into Unit-01's bare palms like a giant transparent wall. It burned, as if he had his hands up against scalding metal.

Shinji winced, but he kept pushing, causing the AT Field to bend outwards. He put all his strength into it, and knew that Unit-01 was pushing with him. The AT Field enveloped its hands. The burning sensation grew worse. Shinji could feel his hands blistering, the skin cracking and peeling back under the gloves of his suit. He groaned through tightly clenched teeth, in agonizing pain.

"Mother!" Shinji cried out. He kept pushing. "I know you can hear me!"

The AT Field bowed out, distorting light around it, releasing energy in waves. The air shivered; what was left of Unit-01's purple armor began to melt, its slanted eyes glowing brightly.

He kept pushing.

"MOTHER!"

And then everything was quiet, as if the whole world had suddenly paused. Then Shinji heard the sound of a single drop splashing on water. His mind was suddenly blank, and it was as though he had opened his eyes after a long night. He felt a connection, deeper than anything that came before.

Unit-01 roared, stretching forward, muscles straining. Its eyes were ablaze, like the sensors on Shinji's suit, bright red circles like red suns, radiating heat and unrestrained power. He didn't understand what it meant; just that he had to push harder.

But suddenly there was nothing to push against. The AT Field split, like a curtain being cut with a knife.

And Unit-01 was free at last.

Before Shinji could think it, his Eva was racing forward. The impact was teeth jarring as Unit-01 slammed into the mass production unit holding the spear and assaulting Asuka's defenseless core—armor and bones and flesh came together, crushed and dented. The white Evangelion crumbled into a broken pile and let go of the spear.

Shinji turned Unit-01 around to face the rest of the Eva Series. His face was furious; he had never felt such rage and power coursing through him before. And he knew there was to be no more running away, no more hiding behind the strength of others, no more craving words of praise from his father or anyone else or being afraid to let others down.

Those things were not important. But this was. His whole life had been lived for this moment. He was always meant to be here, between Asuka and suffering.

"Get away from her!" Shinji lunged. He wrapped Unit-01's his hands around the back of the nearest mass production unit's neck and pulling it away from Unit-02 with such violence that he felt the vertebrae at the base of the skull dislocate.

"You …"

Slowly, the rest of the Eva Series released their grip on Unit-02, leaving behind festering bite marks oozing black pus where their teeth had sank into the unarmored brown flesh, which was now colored black and rotten in appearance. They turned their heads towards Unit-01, a forest of round blue eyes bristling at him. By then Shinji had crushed the neck of the Eva unit in his hands and tossed it aside.

The voice yelled over the radio, filling the entry-plug with its unrestrained anger. "She is mine. If you fight, you will die for nothing."

"I won't let you hurt her anymore!" Shinji roared.

Unit-01 did the same, slumping forward and uttering a wall-shaking bellow, smoking hands turned to claws, burning eyes glaring at the beasts in front of it.

Letting the badly mauled Unit-02, the spiked spear still protruding from its core, sink beneath the LCL, the mass production Evangelions began to spread out in a semicircle, their movements lumbering and awkward. Shinji followed them with his eyes, his whole body tensed, waiting. There was silence.

Then, their tooth-filled mouths snapping open, they pounced.

* * *

Rei watched as the first of the white Evangelions smashed into Unit-01, followed by its twins.

For a moment, they were all tangled in a shapeless ball of limbs and teeth. Unit-01 disappeared from view, swallowed up by the combined mass of its attackers. Then the white Evas were thrown back as if by an invisible explosion, flailing and screeching into the LCL. The impact of so many large bodies displaced a huge amount of liquid and generated a tidal wave which overflowed the edge of the platform.

Rei ducked her head, shielding it with her arm, as the wave crested and washed over her. The white-haired boy towering next to her used his AT Field to keep the LCL at bay. The wave hit her squarely, sending her tumbling backwards, rolling and suddenly weightless as she plunged under the surface. The sound of rushing water, like thunder, filled her ears. When the wave receded, she was lying on her stomach, her face pressed to the concrete, drenched head to toes in LCL.

Lifting her head, she saw that Unit-01 was alone, unmolested; it's slanted eyes glowed. Rei could feel the anger and desperation to save the one he loved that fueled the actions of its pilot, as she had felt the terror and agony of the Second Child—and could still feel her, crying out in the back of her mind like a frightened child calling for mother. But these emotions, painfully raw as they were, were not unexpected. What really surprised her was the change that had begun to occur in the being with Kaworu Nagisa's form.

Rei struggled to her knees as Unit-01 charged.

The purple Evangelion grabbed the closest enemy by the neck with both hands, blistered fingers digging into the white flesh, lifting it into the air. Bones crunched sickeningly; the Eva went limp. Unit-01 turned around, just as two other opponents approached it, and tossed the broken Eva into their midst. They crumpled into a pile. Unit-01 lowered its head, pitching forward. Something about its gait seemed animalistic, more primate than human. It lunged at the fallen units with its mouth, ripping into their flesh, tearing huge pieces of it. Blood sprayed out all around it.

Three more Evas closed in. Unit-01, blood and bits of flesh dripping from its mouth, turned and plowed its head into the nearest attacker. It balked backward, but it didn't fall. Unit-01 plunged headlong into it, lifting it high on its shoulders like a bull ramming a bullfighter. Rei heard the sound of armor and bones crunching under the force of the blow. Unit-01 shoved the other Eva to the far end of the cavern, smashing it up against the curved wall. Even as it did this, the other units began to regenerate.

Once again, Rei got up, dripping LCL, her short blue hair soaked. The cavern's hot air was full of energy, stroking her pale white skin. It felt similar to being naked on a hot rainy day, when thunderstorms would cause the humidity to rise steeply, loading the air with water particles. Her apartment had never been climatized, and it was more comfortable to simply not wear any clothes rather than stain them with sweat; she had spent countless hours sitting on her bed, looking out of the window at the rain.

Rei focused on the sensations around her—the pain and the anger—and let them flow into her. She wasn't a part of them, though she shared such emotions herself. But she was a witness. She knew the future was being decided here and now, and that people who were very important to her were in great danger. She couldn't just stand by.

Then, before she knew how it happened, her dislocated shoulder was back in place, as if her joint had lost its cohesion only long enough for it to regain its shape.

Unit-01 now had the other Eva pinned against the wall, and was pounding it mercilessly with its fists. The long white snout had already disappeared into a formless mass; sharp, broken teeth dangled from a unhinged jaw. It was no good—the white Eva would not stop moving. It would not die.

The boy still stood near the edge of the platform. Unlike before, when he had projected an sense of control and confidence, he now seemed extraordinarily angry. Rei couldn't see his face, turned to the battle in front of him, but his hands had turned to fists.

Rei decided to take her chances. She ran towards him, her bare feet making soft padding noises on the concrete. He didn't see her coming.

The impact knocked the air out of her lungs, but she managed to wrap her arms around the boy's waist and use her momentum to take both of them to the ground. Rei stayed on top as they landed, straddling him with her nude form, rolling him onto his back. She pressed one of her hands against his shoulder, and the other reached for his throat. Then she saw his face … and stopped.

His red eyes glared at her, brimming with anger. There were tears running down his cheeks.

In the distance, Unit-01 opened its mouth impossibly wide, teeth glinting in the dim lighting. They flashed for an instant before the purple Evangelion brought its mouth down on its opponent's exposed core. The dark sphere seemed to sink further into the chest, but Unit-01 gripped it between its jaws, hands planted on the other Eva's shoulder. Neck muscles flexing visibly, Unit-01 bit into the core. There was a noise like nails on a chalkboard, followed by a high-pitched shriek from the white Evangelion as the core cracked and exploded into a torrent of blood and fragments.

The Eva jerked violently, writhing under Unit-01's weight and foaming at the mouth. Its wide open blue eyes rolled back into white. And then, with an almost pitiful whimper, it died.

Unit-01 turned as another of the white Evas came sprinting towards it, hoisting its double-tipped spear up. There was no time to react; the long spear pierced completely through Unit-01's shoulder, its twin prongs emerging from the armored shoulder blade on the other side. Rei felt the sharp stab of pain. But as the Eva came closer, snapping its mouth, Unit-01 kicked it with brutal force. The attacker stumbled clumsily backwards. Unit-01 grabbed the spear shaft and ripped it from its hands.

Then Unit-01 pulled the spear out from its shoulder and lunged forward. Before the white Eva could even begin to regain its footing, Unit-01 jammed the spear into its dark core with a powerful downward strike. Such was the force that the core punctured cleanly, without cracking. The prongs emerged almost to their full length from the armored plates on its back. The white Eva hissed, rolling out its tongue, and flopped down lifelessly into the LCL.

Rei felt it die. The white-haired boy beneath her clutched a hand to his chest, and she could guess that he felt it as well. She was beginning to understand. They stared at each other. At any moment Rei expected that he would extend his AT Field and throw her off.

But no AT Field materialized.

"What do you want?" the boy said. "I have no further interest in you."

"They are my friends. I will fight you because they need me to."

He frowned. "What is this compulsion to self-sacrifice? You would rather lose your life than relinquish a single person, a stranger who cannot help but hurt you. I have seen her mind. She hates you. I know it."

Rei knew she had to make him understand—it was the only way to end this. Coming to grips with her own feelings had been a slow, gradual process. And she had been lucky to have Shinji and Keiko, and the Second to a lesser extent, to guide her. She had asked questions and found some of the answers on her own. But they had given her immediate examples, and shown her by their words and actions the complexity of human behavior. And, over that time, she had gone from being a completely blank page to a fully-realized diary of her experience. She had coped and accepted, and was herself accepted.

This being, however, had none of that. All the emotions that the human heart was capable of were crashing down on him, all at once, and it was overwhelming. It would be to anyone. It was as if he had been born yesterday, with the complete cognitive capabilities of a superior intellect, but lacking the ability to express fundamental emotions because he had never learned how. Never had he been taught how to cope with them.

But they were the same, and if she could learn so could he.

"It is because I have a bond," Rei said. "Human beings experience many feelings as they grow, over many years. But even they have trouble understanding them. For me, my feelings were just sensations in my chest, as if my body knew what it was supposed to feel but my mind could not relate to them. They were inherited, from someone I used to be. In time, I developed my own as well. And they became my bonds."

Rei returned her gaze to the battle. Unit-01 was sprinting forward, driving the spear into yet another opponent. She could almost hear Shinji scream. Three other Eva units were instantly on him.

"All through their lives, humans form a multitude of bonds to others and more complex feelings—love, happiness, anger, hatred, countless others. And those feelings come to define their relationships to one another. Though I was not like them, they accepted me, and made me part of themselves. And they are part of me. Because we are connected through our bonds, and the feelings attached to them." She looked down at the boy. "You should at least understand that."

"I do not," he spat. "I have no feelings."

"Why are you crying?"

The boy seemed shocked as he reached up, rubbing the back of his gloved hand over his eyes. He stared at the spot his tears made on the thick black material. "Why … " he said slowly. "Why am I crying?"

"Because it hurts," Rei said. "To want someone who does not want you in return. I know that feeling. But you can not force your way into someone's heart. You cannot force them to want to be with you."

He was angry. "That is ridiculous. Only your ignorance would have you say such nonsense. I am above such petty emotions."

"Are you?" Rei held her ground. "I always wondered what made someone cry," she said. "At first it seemed contradictory—to cry when you are sad, but also cry when you are happy. I saw Shinji do both. But it is not the emotions themselves that matter, it is that you can cry that is important. It is a physical representation of what a sentient mind is capable of."

"I am not like them."

Rei shook her head. "You said we were the same, and I can feel these emotions. That means you can as well."

His hand shot up, grasping her around the neck. She made a strangled noise as he forced her head up. Rei tried to pry the hand away from her. It was much too strong. Instead, she reached down, and placed her palm on his cheek. A sudden calm came over her.

The anger seemed almost natural. Countless times Rei had been the target of the Second's anger without being at fault—now she understood that it was not necessarily anything she did, but how the other girl had felt on the inside. Anger was there as an outward expression of the pain and hurt she dared not show anyone, very much like crying. It was the same mechanism.

Rei closed her eyes, ignoring the fingers on her throat. And even in the darkness of her mind, she could see him. The space around them fell away into nothingness, as if they were lying in a black void.

And then she was standing in an ocean of LCL, stretching as far as she could see. It lapped at her thighs, creating small ripples. Behind her rose a black tree, with boney, leafless branches stretching out skywards like dozens of decaying fingers. There were faces carved into the tree, showing pained expressions. At the base of the tree, on a small hill of black land, sat a nude boy, his ash-gray hair frayed and disheveled, his skin as pale white as Rei's own.

He was curled up tightly, his face hidden behind his knees, sobbing quietly. Even from a distance, Rei could see the many bruises on his body, ugly dark blotches on the otherwise ghostly skin. He was surrounded by black, root-like appendages, some of which seemed to penetrate parts of his body. Lying in front of him was a tattered red plugsuit with an orange midsection. It was empty, resembling a suit of flayed skin.

"Why are you here?" the boy asked, not raising his head.

"I want to understand." Rei looked around. "I have seen this before. Is this your mind?"

"This is my construct. The gateway to my consciousness."

"I see. But it is also your prison," Rei said. "You were alone here. Always alone. And so you fear loneliness. Just as the Second does."

The boy scoffed, bare shoulders tensing visibly.

"You forced the Second to share her mind with you," Rei said, walking closer to the tree. As she set foot on the hill, she noticed the sand was very warm. "But such connections are reciprocal. It is the same with the Eva—the synchronization of the pilot creates a bond. So you created a bond to her, and that made you who you are now. You cry because you feel what being human is like—to be alone, to be rejected by others. And it hurts."

He said nothing.

"You have to accept it," Rei said. She looked at tree, and something primal within her revolted at the sight of such decay.

"You are not welcome here," the boy retorted, his voice growing angry. "Your mind is weak and infected. You cannot conceive of my reality, let alone understand it. Leave."

Rei stood next to him and looked down. "Did the Second ask you to leave her?"

"Yes."

"Did it hurt?"

That was the key. He might be able to deny what he felt, but not the fact that he_ felt _it. The emotions he claimed not to have were still there, even if he was unable to define them properly—just as Rei had been.

"I know how you feel," Rei said, her voice soft. "You feel anger, desire. You want her because you believe that she can understand you. In her own loneliness, you believe that perhaps she will know what it is like. But she does not want you. All the power in the world cannot change that."

He shook his head, slipping his hands into his hair. His body tensed up in an even tighter ball, shoulders rising, muscles constricting.

Rei reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You have to accept it. Being hurt is not an excuse to hurt others. You are like me, but you are also like them. You can understand, as I did. You do not have to be alone."

"You understand nothing," the boy growled.

"Please."

"No!" the boy bellowed, furiously shaking his head, long fingers knotted among locks of white hair. "I am not like them. I don't want this!"

"Nobody wants to be rejected."

With a spasmodic jerk, the boy raised his head and fixed his eyes on Rei again. They were wide, mad. Rei suddenly felt a chill run up her spine. His eyes burned into her.

Something had broken in them.

"NO!" The boy's face split into a grin. Then it became a snarl. "I am not like them—I will have what I want. This time, I will have what I want!"

Rei struggled against the urge to step back, fear beginning to rise inside of her. "You do not have to—"

The boy laughed. "You understand nothing. I am alone. That is the purpose of the AT Field—of this human body. But no more. If this is what being human feels like, all the more reason it shall be destroyed. And you along with them."

He lunged violently, shoving Rei away from him. The albino girl stumbled backwards, caught her heel on a nearby root and fell to the ground. He towered over her, hands made into fists, his eyes glowing with anger and hatred.

Rei held her breath, suddenly frozen in the horror of that vision. Then she felt something grasp her right wrist. She looked down just in time to see a black root take a hold of her arm and squeeze, moving her arm away from her body. A second root grasped her left arm and two more around her ankles, spreading her open on the black sand.

"It is your own fault," the boy said. "The Second thought she could fight me, too. Now she is broken. Humans are all the same—they fight because they believe they have a future. What future is there in pain and hurt? What future is there in loneliness? You feel those things and you take them as absolute. You have never known a life without them."

Rei felt a sudden stabbing pain at the small of her back.

"But I have." He stepped over her. "The end of the AT Field is the end of that future—and the end of pain and hurt and loneliness. The ultimate solution to the human problem. My solution."

And it was then that Rei felt her AT Field eroding. Her warm body grew softer and softer as it began to lose its solid form.

Rei looked down at herself and stared in terror as her smooth flesh started to sag like soggy clay. Her face grew overlong as it melted, until the graceful outline of her jaw vanished completely, fusing with her neck and shoulders. Soon all that remained of her pretty features was a pair of red eyes and an odd bump where her nose had been. Her blue mane slid off like a wig, leaving behind a bald lump of a head.

All vestiges of pretty girlhood and human form slowly melted away. Her arms became little more than floppy noodles. Her breasts sank into her chest, but her stomach bulged outward and a single black root wormed its way upwards. When she finally lost the ability to hold her head up and it flopped back onto the sand, her once shapely teenage body had been reduced to a sort of shapeless mass.

By then she couldn't talk.

The boy dropped to his knees, straddling what was left of her waist. "You brought this on yourself."

Rei choked back a sob, her body now a thick white-colored puddle on the black earth. The roots which had penetrated her retreated back underground like the cadre of snakes they resembled. She stared up at him.

For a moment she couldn't think of anything, her mind locked in shock and uncomprehending horror. She began to shake, almost in tears and made a noise that was half groan and half whimper.

The boy tilted his head back and laughed; the crazed grin on his face spread almost ear to ear.

Rei knew she had made a terrible mistake. She had assumed that she could talk to this being, and help him realize his own potential as she had done with Keiko. She had seen the display of his emotion and thought that perhaps he was not so different, that there was good in him because good was inherent in all thinking beings. If, despite their many flaws, humans were capable of it, then anything was possible.

But she was wrong.

Having never been able to place the context of human interaction to what he felt, he simply was unable to cope with his emotions on even the most basic levels. They still existed, because of what he was, but without the ability to deal with them they were little more than raw materials and instincts. And instinct could not be reasoned with, only acted on.

It was like being insane, Rei belatedly realized. That was what she now saw on his face—he had been driven insane by his own suppressed emotions, by the endless potential of a superior mind shackled to the vulnerable, imperfect reality of human bonds and the human heart. And she had done it. She had pushed him towards it. Those she cared about were going to die, and it was her fault.

And then, for the first time in her life, the tears did come.

* * *

Rei opened her eyes, a strangled moan escaping her lips. She looked down and saw the boy lying underneath her, his hands around her neck. His expression was deranged; red eyes wide, mouth twisted into a snarl. Tears were no longer streaming down his face, but they were from hers. She realized she still had a hand pressed against his cheek. She quickly pulled it away.

There was an awful rending noise above them. Their heads turned in unison, just as the mangled carcass of one of the white Eva units plopped down on the platform less than a hundred feet from them, crushing the concrete slabs under it with its massive weight. Its right arm had been torn off. As it rolled onto its stomach and attempted to push itself up, a spear impaled it from behind, the prongs emerging from the core and pinning it to the ground.

Rei followed the shaft of the spear with her gaze, until it reached Unit-01's blistered hands. Most of the purple Evangelion's armor was gone, and what little remained was dented and scuffed beyond all recognition. The left side of its head was caved in, as if it had received a huge blow. What had not changed were the eyes, slanted and angry, lit from within, and the rush of its pilot's emotions.

Behind Unit-01 was a graveyard. The remains of the Eva Series lay scattered about, broken limbs, stumps, chunks of armor and unidentifiable body parts rising out of the LCL like a small collection of jagged islands. And somewhere in that graveyard, below the surface, lay Unit-02.

The hands holding her neck flexed, and Rei was tossed aside. Lying on the platform yet again, she made no attempt to get up. It seemed like that was all she had done, and the end result was that someone important to her had suffered. She didn't want to cause anyone any more pain.

Then, with a small jolt, Rei was surprised to find that she could still, very faintly, feel Unit-02's pilot. It was not a conscious presence, just a lingering shadow of what it should be, weak and fading. But it was somehow still there.

She seized on the Second Child's weak presence for strength.

Wearily, exhausted both physically and emotionally, Rei sat up. It took everything she had. She watched as the boy rose nearby. His shoulders swayed awkwardly; gone was the straight, confident posture, replaced by a tottering, unbalanced gait. He looked out at the graveyard and what had become of the beings he had called his brothers. With his back to her, Rei could not see his expression. Then he started laughing again, a sharp cackle that echoed in the chamber.

He turned to Rei, eyes narrowed.

"You filthy creature!" Despite the laughter, his voice was all spite and anger. "Do you think I am stupid? You are as treacherous as the rest of them. You have been buying him time!"

"All I have done is—" Rei saw his fist only a split second before it smashed into her face. She crumpled, her head hitting the ground with a dull thud.

"Shut up," he spat. "Your every word is an infection. Your every breath is a betrayal of the truth—that you have failed to see them for what they are."

He punched her again, driving her head into the concrete. And again.

Rei closed her eyes under the barrage of blows, curling up tightly and bringing her hands up to shield her head. "I failed … to understand you."

He stood up and smashed his booted foot against the side of her head. Rei gave a sharp whimper as nearly all the fingers of her left hand broke. He stomped on her again. Searing pain burst from her temple, but she could not tell if it, too, had been fractured.

"You can no more understand me than a maggot can understand God." He reached behind his back and pulled out a combat knife from a sheath, attached to the bottom of the bulletproof vest he was still wearing. "Let's see how much insight you can gain after I put out your eyes."

Rei did not try to resist as he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head up. She looked deep into his hateful stare, shuddering at what she saw. There was nothing there worth saving—and that was a hard thing to realize for someone who had come to believe in the inherent goodness of all life. But it was the truth.

"Stop."

The boy turned to face the source of the voice, which Rei immediately recognized as Shinji's. Unit-01 towered above them from the edge of the platform like a humanoid mountain, its head tilted down, fire in its eyes. Not a single piece of its armor remained undamaged, and most of it was gone altogether. The stumps of broken bones protruded from the left side of its chest, puncturing the brownish skin beside its exposed core.

Tossing the knife aside, the boy clenched his fist and took a single step forwards, dragging Rei's nude, battered form behind him.

"You killed my brothers! And you have doomed all of your kind to suffer the curse of their own humanity." He pointed stiffly to the creature on the cross, then to himself. "Ignorant child. Do you see? She is your beginning, and I am your end. The end of your suffering. Man is not the measure of all things; it is the death of them."

Unit-01 remained motionless, expressionless, glowing eyes peering down at the child confronting it.

The boy scowled. "It is my purpose to bring an end to your suffering. All of your so-called bonds, your contacts with one another, even when you are kind and loving—they only lead to death. Physical death. Mental death. Spiritual death. Your very existence is a continuous genocide!"

Then, slowly and inexorably Unit-01 reached down a hand. An AT Field flared out of nowhere, but the hand bent it, ripping it apart almost with no visible effort on its part. It continued to descend.

As the enormous fingers, covered in ruptured blisters and bloody burns, closed in, the boy finally let go of Rei's hair. His eyes flickered sideways, considering routes of escape. His body tensed, ready to jump out of the way of the encroaching hand. But he never had the chance.

A slender, delicate arm shot out with incredible speed and grasped him by the wrist.

He turned, and had only enough time to glare at back at Rei before Unit-01's giant fingers wrapped themselves around him.

"I'm sorry," Rei groaned. Her tone was low and pained. "Everyone deserves to be happy."

The boy laughed at her words.

And yet Rei felt he had come here seeking just that in the form of the Second Child—on some level, the redheaded girl must have made him happy. He might have not understood that of himself, and now, sadly, he never would. But it had to end, one way or another.

Rei's face remained neutral, meeting his anger with a calmness she didn't feel. Then his sharp features became distant as Unit-01 tightened its grasp and lifted him off the ground.

The white haired boy twisted his upper body to confront the beast holding him in its hand. "Do you expect me to be afraid?" he spat. "Shinji Ikari. There are worse things to be afraid of. Because even if you win, you will still be human. You wish so desperately to live that you would sacrifice transcendence beyond all bonds."

Unit-01 opened its mouth, white teeth and dark gums showing beneath the mangled metal of its armored jaw.

"I have ruined the one you love. Live with that."

Unit-01 lowered its head, and Rei saw that gaping mouth, the space within black, an endless void, descending. She turned away at the last moment, and didn't see the mouth close around the boy's head and shoulders. She didn't hear bones crunching. There was no final scream. Only the faint, soft sound of tearing flesh.

Rei waited, sitting there on the platform, as Unit-01 devoured the being which had tormented them, which had wanted nothing more than to destroy everything she held dear. And she felt sorry. No life should end like that.

Unit-01 lingered over her a moment longer. "Rei, are you alright?" Shinji asked. His voice was weird, trembling slightly. Rei could tell he was crying.

She nodded, unable to find her voice. What could she say? What could she do?

The gesture seemed to be good enough for Shinji. Unit-01 turned and headed for where Unit-02 had sunk under the surface in the middle of the LCL graveyard. Unit-01 stooped down, reaching its arms into the orange liquid, searching.

It didn't take long, and as the purple Evangelion pulled out the mauled remains of Unit-02, Rei had the distinct impression that something was not quite right. Like the other Eva, most of Unit-02's armor was missing. The left side of its face was completely gone, with two puncture wounds among caved in and pulped brown flesh. There were festering bite marks all over the exposed flesh of its upper body and arms. The core was badly cracked, and growing even more so by the second; the holes where it had been pierced frayed around the edges as the material slowly crumbled, sending deep cracks in all directions. An faint red glow emanated from the inside, fading away as the core crumbled.

It was only a matter of time, Rei thought sadly. The only question now was whether Unit-02 would die first … or its pilot.

Then she felt something else, a strong warm presence radiating from Unit-01's core. She narrowed her eyes and looked at the dark, intact sphere as it pressed against Unit-02 broken one. There was nothing Rei could do, but maybe Unit-01 could somehow …

The warmth grew into a fire, hot enough that the edges of the shattered core began to melt into the whole sphere of the one being pushed into it, altering their geometry as they fused, becoming one, like the hearts of their pilots were one.

Rei dragged her tired, beaten and nearly heartbroken body upright, and stared at the point where the two cores came together.

* * *

"Asuka … "

Shinji heard his own voice break. The tears stung his eyes, blurring his vision. He wiped a forearm over his face, taking them away, and looked again at the mangled thing he had just pulled out of the LCL. His chest tightened. Asuka had been calling for her mother, her voice growing weaker and more distant. Then, finally, she stopped.

"Asuka, please talk to me." He turned his gaze to the open video window to his right, where Asuka's face had been. There was only static. "Asuka …"

Surely, Asuka would answer him if she could. She would want to let him know that she was alright, not wanting to worry him. She was tough and strong and she would call him stupid for acting like she could somehow be seriously hurt. But she didn't. There was just nothing. No words, no insults, no last farewell, not even a scream.

And in that silence, Shinji felt his own heart falling apart.

He knew, somewhere deep inside, that Asuka was not answering because she couldn't. His dreams, his hopes, and everything else he wished for the future simply ebbed away, leaving behind only an empty vacuum.

Because Asuka was dead.

Shinji curled forward, and he buried his face in his burned hands, and he cried. Unit-01 drew the limp form that had been Asuka's prized Eva close, cradling it as if it could feel how much its pilot meant to him.

The entry-plug filled with the sad sound of his weeping, bouncing off the cylindrical walls, echoing. He knew he sounded pathetic, and he was. He couldn't even save the most important person in his life. Despite it all—despite promising he would never leave her, never hurt her—despite the happiness they had enjoyed together, in the end none of it mattered. Asuka was dead, and the only thing he could do about it was cry.

Unit-01 clutched Unit-02 more tightly, bringing the other Eva's crushed core against its own. The two dark spheres pressed together.

And then, in the depths of his despair, Shinji felt a second set of hands of his face. His head jerked up in surprise. His eyes went wide.

There, floating in the LCL in front of him, was Yui Ikari.

His mother looked exactly as he remembered her; her hair was short and brown, the same color as his, but resembling Rei's in its appearance. Her eyes were a warm green, round and filled with a kind of motherly compassion he had seldom seen, and even more rarely experienced. Her face was delicate, beautiful; her slender nude body floated there almost weightlessly as she cupped his face, her touch soft and tender.

For a moment, Shinji was convinced he had gone insane. But regardless of the impossibility of what he was seeing and hearing, he surrendered to it. The entry-plug around him seemed to fall apart, as the digital depiction of the outside world vanished into a sweeping red tide and there was only a vast, crimson-hued space.

The command seat quickly followed, appearing to dissolve right from under him into a shower of sparkling mist. He was floating in nothingness now. The transparent suit, which had caused him so much embarrassment, went next. It simply peeled off, going up in a cloud of glittering particles that drifted around his naked form for a few seconds before dissolving.

Shinji stared silently, his tear-stained face frozen. He didn't know what to feel or think; what was real and what wasn't. His mother smiled kindly at him, just as she had the last time he saw her before she climbed into Unit-01 nearly ten years ago.

She tugged at him gently.

Shinji shook his head. "I … can't," he sobbed. "I can't go on. I … " The rest of his words melted into whimpering.

Yui gave him the slightest of nods, and Shinji felt himself being pulled forward, sinking deeper towards the bottom end of the entry-plug. In the blink of an eye, his mother was gone and his vision filled with a glowing red circle surrounded by black emptiness. The speed of his descent increased, faster and faster, and the circle became much larger as it got closer. .

The space around him swirled in streams of rainbow-colored energy, wrapping and trailing his nude body, and it occurred to him that there was no way his entry-plug was this large or deep.

The red opening loomed in front of him, an ominous portal into the unknown. His eyes were wide. His mother's presence was all around him, and he felt very much as he had when she had pulled him into her bosom as a little boy—elated, comforted, not afraid of anything in the world. He didn't understand what she wanted of him, but it was okay.

As he crossed the threshold, everything instantly became washed out in red. The rainbow energy ribbons erupted into bubbling black trails on contact. The pressure of the LCL seemed to change. It was heavier and hotter, pushing in against his body from all sides. He almost didn't notice when his skin began to peel off in flakes, forming a glittering mist just as the suit had before, leaving behind raw red flesh. It didn't hurt.

The pressure continued to increase as he descended, towards a single blazing red flame at the center of the space. Little bits of him began to dissolve away, shed like so many tears. His eyes remained fixed straight ahead, on the flame, until his sight faded and there was only bottomless warmth.

* * *

**Fourth Movement:**

* * *

"Everything has gone to hell."

In the dim lighting of the Ministry of the Interior's war room, with only the phosphorescent LCD screens on all four walls to provide illumination, Hidetoshi Sato could not tell if the Minister was being facetious. Certainly Sato would have never imagined him as a religious man, but he had seen stranger things in a politician, and today was a day for strange things.

The war room was basically a large steel box located within a much a larger and darker room. The doors were magnetically sealed and closely monitored, and the room itself was shielded from all forms of electronic interference. The inside of the steel box held a long wooden table at which half a dozen high-ranking government officials were now seated. The walls were lined up with monitors, creating an endless stream of moving pictures that provided a shocking but detached view of what was happening in Tokyo-3. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and built-up tension. Everyone here knew what was at stake.

Sato would have preferred to avoid sitting through such a meeting blind, but unfortunately he had to rely on these men for information. He didn't have a choice. Simply getting himself a seat at this table had taken calling in a decade's worth of old favors.

Tokyo-3 was effectively sealed off now, and if the military hadn't completely cut off communications then the N2 blast that carved out the Geo-Front had done it. Fuuka Sanada and her team were on their own. Sato had confidence in her; by selecting someone with a personal connection to the mission he had ensured more than her professional commitment. She would see this thing through, even if it killed her. And it probably would. Sato had no illusions about the situation.

But while he could accept losing some assets, the lack of information was very troubling. The only intelligence available was being provided by the scattered units of 4th Mountain which had survived, mostly Second and Third Brigades. The pictures on the screens came from satellites or surveillance aircraft overhead, and they weren't even secret—enterprising hackers had already put the video streams on the web. Government-controlled news media outlets were trying to downplay the crisis, but it was hard to spin an entire city being blasted out of existence. Other than that they had only fragmented reports, rumors, best and worst-case scenarios. None of it was good.

Finally, after his long silence, the Minister sat at the head of the table and turned to his aide. "Mr. Ono, I want a list of all the contacts my office has had with Musashi Kluge."

The man, somewhat young for his position, frowned. "Sir, visits from the Department Chief are strictly off the record at his own request."

"Let me repeat myself," the Minister said, his voice growing low. He leaned forward on the table. "I _want_ a record that shows his visits to my office. I do not care if you have to fabricate it."

"Yes, sir." Ono stood and hurried out of the room, leaving behind a few puzzled glances.

The Minister turned to the other men, his gaze even and his voice tightly controlled.

"Gentlemen, I believe I need to share some information with you." He reached into his suit pocket and retrieved a cigarette. "Three weeks ago, Department Chief Kluge came to my office and provided evidence of Gendo Ikari's involvement with the incident in Beijing. This evidence was in the form of a software footprint originating from one of the Evangelions—software that was also in the Chinese Branch's computers during the recovery operations carried out by the UN. This footprint sample was also found inside Unit-A's entry-plug."

"How could Kluge know that?" an old man in glasses said, reaching out to light the Minister's cigarette with his own lighter. "Unit-A's entry-plug was never released from NERV custody before being destroyed. We couldn't even confirm the pilot's identity."

Sato knew this man only by his tittle—the Chief Adjutant to the Intelligence Department of the SSDF. He also knew of the rumors regarding Unit-A and its pilot. The Chinese had denied using a human subject for their experiment, but both himself and the ISSDF had sources claiming the contrary. Things like this always found ways of leaking out. In this case, several surviving Beijing Branch personnel had allegedly come forth despite the Chinese government's best efforts to silence them. The pilot, according to them, had been a young girl of fourteen.

Even as someone who had seen it all, Sato was repulsed by the idea of using children as weapons. But the road to global supremacy took many forms and destroyed many morals. His country, the one he had secretly sworn an oath to, was proof of that. And the Evangelion was an extraordinary weapon. The only difference was that in the case of the Nevada Branch there was not enough left worth hiding.

"Never mind about the pilot." The Minister waved his hand. "Kluge's analysis concluded that this software footprint is unique. From my understanding, it was the result of some secret project following Second Impact. The software was requested by and delivered to Gendo Ikari more than five months ago. It was my fear that once this evidence came to light, the Chinese would see it as proof of Ikari's direct responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their citizens. And they would blame us for harboring him and providing him with the weapon."

There was some nodding in the room, even from Sato. He could see the logic building up.

"This evidence was presented in a secret meeting with key members of the UN Security Council, including Congressman Keel," the Minister continued. "The current operation, code-named Summer Blossom, was proposed and approved. Chief Kluge was given supreme oversight. As you know, early this morning the JSSDF began to isolate and neutralize NERV defense capabilities. What you do not know, however, is that Musashi Kluge took an infiltration team inside Central Dogma itself, led by an informant—the one who provided the evidence—to apprehend Ikari."

Sato felt something heavy in his stomach, but it was the man to his right, a JSSDF general with a chest full of medals who voiced the obvious.

"You did not want to simply destroy NERV," he said. A hint of glee, reminding Sato of a child at the prospect of getting a new toy, entered in his narrow eyes. "You wanted to take it over. You wanted the Evangelion."

The Minister nodded. "That was my thought."

The Foreign Secretary leaned forward in his chair. He was a burly man in his seventies and barely seemed to fit between the armrests. "You wanted to appropriate a weapon of mass destruction nominally under UN custody and the Security Council had no problem with that?"

The Minister shook his head. "I didn't say the whole Security Council. This plan was presented to certain members sympathetic to our goals—removing NERV from Ikari's control to preempt full-scale Chinese retaliation. The UN didn't run NERV, and hasn't for a long time. Let's not be mistaken about that. Ikari has been behaving like an international criminal at best, and a terrorist at worst. Kluge seemed to have Congressman Keel's complete trust. They worked out the details."

"And you trusted Kluge?" Sato said.

"I had no reason to doubt him. However, certain assurances were made which ultimately did not pan out. The two conclusions I am left to draw from this are that either Kluge's contact was wrong or Kluge himself was wrong."

"Or he lied."

Sato let his words hang in the smoke-filled room. The assembled men looked around at each other, and he could see they were in agreement. Nobody here would have put deception beyond Kluge; they all knew what kind of man he was.

Then the Minister smiled. "Rest assured, Mr. Sato, the thought has occurred to me. Kluge's information was provided by his contact inside NERV, and our decisions were based on that information. If the information was unreliable or falsified, then our decisions are clearly affected. It does not remove the ultimate responsibility, but responsibility is not blame."

"It is also not a solution," Sato ventured. "Perhaps we should focus on that instead."

"What is there to solve?" the general said. "The best thing we can do now is allow the JSSDF to complete its operation. We have committed too much already. Civilian evacuations are continuing. I see no reason to stop the incursion into Central Dogma."

"The Division CP has been destroyed," Sato started slowly, addressing the general, but keeping his eyes on the Minister. "There is no contact with Minamoto or Kluge or anyone above the rank of Captain. We have no estimates on casualties, military or civilian, and no idea what is happening inside the Geo-Front. And, of course, there's the fact than no one in this room has any clue as to why and how the Eva Series was deployed. Those things don't just launch themselves."

The man from the ISSDF interrupted, calmly snuffing his cigarette out on the nearby ashtray. "They might. We don't know anything about them. My people have already contacted the production facility at DIS. We are looking into it."

"We know _something,_" Sato replied, annoyed. The ISSDF had made a habit out of denying things they weren't comfortable with, regardless of how obvious those things might be to everyone else. "For example, we know the Eva Series runs on a modified version of NERV's Dummy System, and we know that, like any automated system, somebody has to turn it on for it to work."

"Maybe not. No orders were ever received—this has already been confirmed by airborne control," the general countered, leaning forward and putting an elbow on the table. "The same goes for the weapon. And even if there had been, no release was ever authorized. Nobody pushed the button. It was probably a malfunction."

The Minister did not seem convinced. "A simultaneous release of two separate combat systems?"

"What I'm saying is that it shouldn't have happened." The general was becoming flustered. "For all intents and purposed, it couldn't have happened. The JSSDF is not responsible for malfunctions or acts of God."

Sato fixed him with a glare. "But it did happen. We can all agree on that, yes?"

"I think we can," the general admitted. "However, shortly before the weapon was released, airborne control reported a signal spike—possibly from a damaged transmitter. It is possible that one of the computers could have mistaken that for an order to launch, triggering the pre-determined combat deployment sequence." He looked at Sato. "As you said, it is an automated system."

Sato was annoyed at having his own words used against him. "If an SSDF computer can mistake a signal spike for an order to launch a WMD, then thank God no one has entrusted you with anything more powerful than an N2 bomb."

"Are you accusing the JSSDF of being incompetent?" The general began to rise out of his chair. "You pencil pushers are all the same. My men are out there dying and you—"

"Gentlemen." The Minister raised his hands in a gesture of appeasement. He turned his head to Sato. "I believe you haven't made your point, Mr. Sato?"

"My point is that this has already gone far beyond the scope of the military. Even if you successfully take over NERV, there is no way to justify all this. Getting Ikari isn't going to do it—you still have to explain that massive hole in the ground where Tokyo-3 used to be. Now you are saying you believe the decision to attack NERV was based on faulty information. How do you think that will play with the public or the rest of the government? Heads—yours and quite a few others—will roll. Under these circumstances, an endgame that includes even more bloodshed is the worst thing we could do."

The Minister rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the tip of his cigarette a glowing orange ember in the gloom. "What do you propose?"

He might as well have said _'I'm listening'_. They could speculate and theorize all the way to next week, but ultimately decisions had to be made and there was only one man who could make them. He was also the only one man in the room Sato needed to convince. But he had to be careful. Releasing too much information could be as dangerous as releasing too little. The trick, as in poker, was knowing when to gamble with one's cards, when to bluff and when you had gone too far. And Sato was very good at poker.

He took a moment to look around the table, then, finally, he turned back to the Minister and said, "I think you should talk with them."

It was a sign that everyone understood the seriousness of the situation that nobody immediately jumped to oppose the suggestion, not even the general. A careful, deliberate silence came over the room.

The Minister placed his hands flat on the table, his brow deeply furrowed. "With NERV? And Ikari?" he almost seemed to spit the name.

No one else raised any objections, so Sato nodded. "I realize dealing with Ikari would be impossible at this point," he conceded. "But we need to make an important distinction. While Ikari leads NERV, I don't feel he speaks for NERV's people. Perhaps there are others you should consider negotiating with. Those who would see it as a gesture of good faith in resolving this situation."

"You sound as if you know one of these people," the Minister said.

Sato found himself suppressing a smile. No politician would ever become Minister of the Interior without being a shrewd, calculating man. He had suspected exactly what Sato wanted him to suspect—that he could provide him with a way out, and, perhaps, political survival.

"Not personally," Sato replied, choosing his words with care. "Though I suppose you could say I do on a more professional level. That is, of course, assuming she's still alive."

The Minister's eyes narrowed. "_She_? Who is it?"

"Misato Katsuragi."

"Ikari's Chief of Operations?" the ISSDF man jumped in. He sounded incredulous. "What makes you think she would cooperate?"

Of course, telling them the whole truth was out of the question. Several weeks ago he had met Misato Katsuragi through a contact with Junichi Nakayima, the son of an old friend. Katsuragi had asked for asylum for herself and the children in exchange for sharing information regarding NERV, Ikari, and the UN's involvement in Second Impact. But Sato had gotten the measure of Katsuragi that night. He had seen the way she reacted to danger and to the threat against the children. She had been decisive, fearless and uncompromising in her dedication to them. She would give her life to protect them. That was someone he could deal with.

After the meeting had been cut short, Ikari had contacted him, and Sato could well imagine that he knew what his Chief of Operations had been doing all along. Rather than making demands or threatening to expose his role as a foreign intelligence agent, Ikari had asked him only to provide security overwatch for the children. The name Musashi Kluge had inevitably come up. But more than Ikari's request for security, it had been Katsuragi's actions that convinced him to gamble on sending a squad inside NERV. Now he was glad he had.

Because he was sure that Kluge had not gone into Central Dogma to do what the Minister of the Interior believed he would do.

"I've met her before," Sato said. "Katsuragi. And I know what drives her. Like every mother, she wants what's best for her children."

His face lined with thought, the Minister snuffed his cigarette out on his ashtray. The smoke drifted up in a thin gray column. He watched for a moment, then looked at Sato.

"I did not know Misato Katsuragi had any children."

* * *

The sunset cast the abandoned playground in a hot shade of red. The empty swings creaked softly in the breeze, hanging from a rusted metal frame. There was no other sound. The grass was overgrown and unkempt, and the place gave a distinct feeling of abandonment. In the center, on a small clearing where the weeds had not yet grown, was a small sandbox. And in the sandbox was a little girl wearing a yellow sundress.

Her hair was a striking orange-red, falling down to the middle of her back. She had a thick bandage over her left eye, but her right one was round and bright blue. She cradled her right arm, also heavily bandaged and nearly useless, to her side. An expression of determination clung to her pretty face as she piled up the sand with her left hand, building something.

Shinji Ikari watched her with fascination. Eight years of age, he stood at the entrance to the playground, holding his mother's hand, feeling immensely safe and content to be by her side. He didn't recall why she had brought him here, but it was sure to be important.

As he watched, the orange-haired girl piled the mound of sand ever higher, until the sides became too steep to hold their own weight and it collapsed in a miniature avalanche. The girl uttered a shrill cry of frustration and shoved her foot into the base of the mound, causing the rest of it to cave in.

She stomped on it repeatedly, yelling, "Stupid, stupid, stupid thing!"

When there was nothing left, the girl dropped to her knees, staring at the destruction. She rubbed an arm over her single blue eye, regained her composure, and, almost inevitably, started building the mound up again.

"Who is she?" Shinji asked, looking up at his mother.

"Her name is Asuka," his mother replied in the same kind voice she always used when explaining things to him, even things he should already know. "She lost her mother recently. Now she's all alone in the world. Don't you think she looks lonely?"

Shinji looked at the girl again, and though the determination had returned to her face there was no hiding the loneliness.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"I think you should help her," his mother said. "You understand how she feels. The two of you are the same." She let go of his hand. "Go on. I'll be proud of you."

Shinji hesitated, feeling nervous. He didn't like being around strangers, even if they happened to be pretty, lonely girls his same age. His mother urged him with a gentle nudge, and before his mind could think of any objections, his feet began shuffling towards the sandbox. And the closer he got, the more certain he started to feel, as if he were drawn to the girl.

Standing at the end of the sandbox, he gulped. "H-hello?"

The girl glared a him, a single orange eyebrow tilting into a deep frown. Her voice was harsh and angry. "What the hell do you want?"

Shinji fidgeted, looking down at his feet. "My name is Shinji Ikari," he murmured. "My mom said your name is Asuka. Right?"

Asuka seemed, if anything, even angrier. She stood and planted both her hands as best she could on her hips. It clearly pained her to move her injured right arm, and Shinji noticed her trying to suppress a wince. "Stupid Shinji," she barked, "answer my question. What the hell do you want?"

He cast his glance at the crumbling pile of sand. "I, um, well I thought that maybe I could help you with your ..." it was then that he realized he had no idea what she was doing. "You know, your sand thingie."

"It's a pyramid!" Asuka cried in a shrill tone. "Don't you know anything about ancient Egypt?"

Shinji shook his head.

"It's what the Pharaohs used to build to serve as their tombs," Asuka explained, and, unlike his mother, she sounded very annoyed at having to do so. "They are monuments from thousands of years ago. Very old. But despite that they are still around."

"Who are the Pharaohs?" Shinji asked, feeling really dumb.

He didn't think it was possible, but Asuka's frown deepened. "Are you stupid? Didn't I just say? They are they guys who built the pyramids to be their tombs." She pointed at the mound. "This is just a little one, of course. The real thing is the size of a tall building."

"B-but why would you want to build a tomb?" Shinji said. "Even a little one."

Asuka glared at him a moment longer, then turned her head away, the bangs across her forehead shifting slightly. Her gaze landed on the pyramid, and Shinji found something very sad about the way she looked at it.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe it's because they've been around for so long and people still remember. I just … I wanted to remember something as well."

Or someone, Shinji thought. "Your mother?"

Asuka didn't answer. Instead she glared moodily at the pile.

But Shinji understood, and he knew that more questions were not going to help. So instead he dropped down to his knees, and silently began gathering the loose sand with his hands, packing it onto the sides of the pyramid and patting it down so it would stay put. Asuka watched him, also silent. The sun set behind her, casting her shadow over him and his work. He felt her eyes on him, questioning and uncertain, and yet grateful. And though he didn't see the little smile that came to her face, he knew it was there.

He was almost done piling up the sand when Asuka knelt opposite him. She reached down with her good hand and began smoothing out the side.

"The sides are supposed to be flat," she said. "See?"

Shinji looked over, saw what she had done, and duplicated it. Working together, the pyramid slowly took shape, a tiny sculpture molded by equally tiny hands. It was trickier than just piling up sand, as the smooth sides made it much more difficult for the top to stay in place and the sand would simply crumble down the sides without any support. But they kept at it, until finally their hands came together around the top. Shinji pressed on two sides while Asuka did the other two, their faces only inches away.

And he saw that she was blushing. Heat rose to his own cheeks, and he averted his eyes, embarrassed. He had never been so close to a girl before.

"You know, you are not so bad," Asuka said, her voice scratchy even when she obviously didn't meant for it to be. But that suited her just fine. She was not like any other girl he had ever met—nothing about her was soft or subtle, nor did he think she ought to be so long as she was herself. "Boys are just useless, but you are okay. I might even let you call me Asuka."

He stuttered slightly. "Th-thank you."

She frowned. "Are you always this sheepish?"

"I'm not a sheep," Shinji responded, his low tone that of a little boy being scolded. He kept his eyes down. "My mom says I'm just naturally shy."

Asuka stood up, again placing her hands on her hips. She looked so confident and grown-up when she made that pose, and Shinji suspected that was the reason she seemed to like it so much. "That's okay. You'll learn."

"Uh?" Shinji blinked at her. "I-I will?"

Asuka grinned, and though it was incredibly charming, it did make him a little nervous.

* * *

His gaze focused on the single light bulb hanging from his bedroom ceiling.

Even for a shy teenage boy now lying naked on his warm bed, Shinji couldn't help feeling strange. There was something he couldn't put his finger on. Something that had seemed to be there before and was gone now. The musky scent of sex and sweat filled the hot air. The room was silent except for the rhythmic sound of heavy, labored breathing coming from somewhere above him.

Shinji shifted his gaze, following the sound.

He was almost surprised to find a pretty redheaded girl straddling his lap. She was also naked, her body slumped forwards, shoulders hunched and head hanging low; her long orange hair fell unrestrained all around her face in thick streams of flame, long bangs partially hiding her features; her lips opened and closed and her chest heaved in a slow rhythm, small breasts rising and falling.

Their teen bodies shimmered with sheets of sweat, still connected through their sexes, but Shinji could not recall much else. This was not their first time, that much he could sense. But something was missing.

Finally, as if to confirm his uneasiness, Asuka sighed and seemed to deflate. She silently climbed off of him and sat next to him at the edge of the bed. Shinji followed her stunning form with his eyes, gliding down the smooth slope of her bare back to where her shapely buttocks sank into the mattress.

Asuka reached her hand down between her legs then raised it up in front of her, examining her fingers.

"What a mess," she said, her voice hoarse and low, then turned her head towards him, brushing her long bangs to the left side of her face to cover her only blemish—her missing left eye. "Are you done, or do you want to put it in again?"

Shinji choked, a furious red coloring his cheeks, and looked away in embarrassment. "D-don't talk about it like that. It's embarrassing."

Asuka frowned at him. "I don't care. What's the point in being grown-up if you are too ashamed to do the things grown-ups do?"

Shinji had no idea what else to say—he couldn't possibly translate the emotions he felt into words, or why it might be embarrassing for him. Asuka was neither shy nor prudish, completely unlike him, so she probably wouldn't understand anyway.

"Fine. Whatever." Asuka rolled out of the bed, clearly annoyed, and stooped down to pick up her clothing from the floor.

Shinji sat up hurriedly. He now had a full, unobstructed view of Asuka's nude body.

"Wait," he said. "I didn't mean to put you off. I'm sorry."

"That won't fix anything." Asuka straightened up, her clothes balled up in her arms.

There was an odd pang of remorse in the pit of Shinji's stomach. He watched as Asuka turned her back and walked to the bedroom door, carrying all her clothes in her arms. She paused with her hand on the door handle, and her head dipped slightly.

"I'm hungry."

She didn't have to make that into a question for Shinji to understand what she wanted. Not bothering to wait for a reply, Asuka slid open the bedroom's thin door and disappeared into the hallway, oblivious of her nudity, her steps heavy.

Shinji got the distinct impression that something was wrong with her, adding to the feeling of general strangeness he already had. Asuka might not say it out of pride, but he had gotten really good at reading her moods and body language. He knew when something was bothering her, even if he didn't know what it was—and he seldom did.

He sat there for a moment, simply staring at the open doorway, then heaved a heavy sigh and slowly climbed out of bed. The warm sheets seemed to stick to his bare, sweat-flushed skin as he moved, beckoning him to stay where he was, safe and comfortable.

And he would have liked to, but Asuka's lunch wasn't going to make itself.

His clothes lay scattered all over the floor, as if they had been flung rather than removed. Shinji picked them up and put them back on. Then, dressed in his usual sleeveless shirt and shorts, he stepped into the hallway and crossed the living room. The sunset's red light filtered in through the balcony doors, creating long, deep shadows that seemed as ominous as they were impenetrable.

In contrast, the kitchen itself was brightly illuminated in yellow-white light from the overhead fixtures. The space was dominated by a heavy wooden table in the middle, with a small food preparation area and a sink on the near side. An accordion-style door connected the kitchen with the washroom and bathroom. Shinji could hear Asuka pottering around inside, doing whatever girls did after sex, a constant, undeniable reminder of her presence.

Asuka wasn't picky when it came to food, so long as it was tasty and not too bland, but when Shinji started going through the cupboards he found that they were all empty. Even the small bottles on the spice rack had nothing in them. He frowned, puzzled. Hadn't he done the groceries just the other day? He wasn't sure. They couldn't have possibly gone through every scrap of food in the apartment—somebody would have noticed. _He_ would have noticed.

Then he caught a blur of movement at the edge of his vision, near the far end of the table. For a second he thought it might be Asuka coming out of the bathroom and wondered how he would explain the sudden and total lack of anything to eat. He turned his head … and saw his mother standing there.

She wore a pink blouse and a long white lab coat. Her short brown hair, a shade lighter than his own, fell around her head in a very familiar way. Her pale green eyes were soft and full of emotion; her lips slightly curled.

And yet there was something entirely foreign about her. Shinji felt a deep void of sadness and longing sink in his chest, and although she was standing only a few feet away it was like a mile. He had the distinct feeling that he hadn't seen her in a long time, which seemed to fit perfectly with the feeling he'd had before—that he had lost something important. And it wasn't just his mother; the whole world suddenly seemed wrong. Not quite real enough.

Because it wasn't.

The memories slowly returned—not things he had forgotten but rather placed in the back of his mind because they were too painful to think about. There was no jarring realization; the truth was just there, waiting to be discovered and accepted. He remembered losing Asuka, and the crushing despair that followed; remembered being pulled down into his entry-plug by his mother. It felt like a lifetime ago, yet he knew it wasn't. His heart told him so.

"I know you have a lot of questions, Shinji," Yui said, her voice soft. "This isn't how I wanted to see you again."

Shinji looked around, beginning to understand. "Is this the Eva's core?"

"Physically, yes." Yui nodded. "Of course, the Eva's core is just a container. But Unit-02 was dying, and once its emergency systems failed, Asuka would have died as well. I fused its core with my own. I made us one."

"Why?" Shinji asked, moving a little closer to his mother.

"Because it was the only thing I could do. Because I had to give you a chance. The reasons go on and on."

Her eyes flickered to the other side of the kitchen. Shinji's followed. As if on cue, the bathroom door retracted, revealing Asuka standing just inside the narrow threshold. She had changed into her school uniform, which looked as though it had been hastily thrown on. Her hair was still loose, framing her stony face and spilling around her shoulders. An angry glare bristled in her right eye. Shinji supposed she had likely overheard their conversation, but he knew it was more than that.

He had listened to the screaming and the crying as Asuka was brutalized inside Unit-02, tortured, and in the end …

That thought hit him like a stone. Did Asuka remember what had happened, as he did? Did she remember dying?

Shinji could not imagine anything quite as horrible.

Asuka stepped silently into the kitchen, her one remaining eye moving from Yui to Shinji and back appraising, measuring the situation. Nobody spoke.

"I had hoped to meet you some day," Shinji's mother finally said,breaking the sorrowful silence. She moved towards Asuka, holding her hands open in gesture of welcome. "Thank you."

"Don't." The young redhead recoiled, then turned and crossed the kitchen, heading towards the exit in a sulk.

Shinji gave her a remorseful look. "Asuka … "

Asuka rounded on him. "What?" she spat. "What? You think I'm being rude?" She pointed angrily at Yui. "She left you! When you were little, she just left you. She took the easy way out. What right does she have to be here now? What right does she have to say anything to you or me or anyone else?"

"She's my mother," Shinji murmured, looking down at the floor between Asuka's bare feet.

"But she isn't mine!" Asuka yelled. She stormed right up to Shinji and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, forcing him to look at her. Her face was twisted, lips drawn back into a snarl, a single bright blue eye trembling beneath a scowling brow. "My mother is dead!"

Shinji gulped, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. "I ..."

"This isn't about you!" Asuka was still yelling, spit flying out of her mouth. "I'm the one who lost her mother. I'm the one who got butchered. Me! It's always ME!"

Shinji shook his head frantically, but he couldn't deny what she was saying. He could almost feel her anger, and a lot of hurt.

"I ..."

Asuka raised her right hand high in the air.

"I'm sorry!" Shinji blurted out. He shrunk back, turning his head away to shield himself from the blow he knew was coming and squeezed his eyes shut. "I … I never meant for this to happen to you. I never meant for you to lose anyone. I'm sorry!"

A second went by, then another. Shinji's heart pounded in his chest.

After a moment and a dozen racing heartbeats, Shinji cautiously opened one of his eyes, peering out sideways as Asuka lowered her hand. Her furious scowl had melted away and in its place there was now an expression of sadness. She held his gaze briefly, her blue eye misty and quivering, then hung her head so low Shinji couldn't see her face anymore. Her whole body seemed to sag.

"Stop saying that," Asuka whispered, easing her grip on his collar until all he could feel was a slight tugging of his shirt. Her voice sounded weird. "That's all you say when it's too late and you can't do anything to help. That's all anyone says. I hate it."

Shinji didn't know what to tell her, and instead moved to grasp her shoulders. Somehow, physical contact always seemed to make up for his failure to express himself.

Asuka released his collar and stepped away. She glanced apologetically at Yui, who had thus far made no effort to interfere on behalf of her son.

Before Shinji could reach out for her again, Asuka turned hastily on her heels and ran off towards the entrance hall, leaving him standing there feeling useless. He saw her rubbing her face with her hands as she went and knew she was on the verge of tears. Even now, when it hardly seemed to matter, Asuka didn't want to cry in front of anyone, to show the hurt as she was entitled to.

But it was there, painful and unreachable, and it broke Shinji's heart.

He hung his head and felt himself sag in resignation. Only after he heard the front door slam shut did he gather the courage to look back at his mother, wishing she hadn't witnessed Asuka's outburst, nor his failure to comfort her.

Yui's expression remained unchanged, pleasant and open. "Shinji, as long as we live we have to accept death. I know you understand this. But sometimes the death of someone we love hurts us so badly that it feels as though a part of ourselves has also died. We cannot understand our own existence beyond it, or imagine being happy as long as that hurt endures. Everything we do, and everything we are, is built on the desire to escape it. Withdrawing from others, craving attention and lashing out, ignoring a child—these are all reflections of the same thing. The same desire. Humans are good at building barriers between ourselves. So that's what we do, because we are afraid to let others hurt us, until all that's left is an empty shell of the person we should be."

Her glance drifted for a moment, and then her face turned serious.

"And sometimes not even the love of others can comfort us. Sometimes,we hurt too much. And we break."

Shinji knew that all too well. He still remembered what Asuka had been like in the hospital when he went to see her those many months ago—nothing more than a broken doll.

His right hand clenched reflexively at the memory; he vividly recalled how he had tugged at her limp body and heard the rustling of the sheets as they slipped to the ground, exposing her. She seemed so pale, nude and cold. Her face was totally lax, eyes closed and lips parted. The thick curls of her hair were everywhere, just like when she slept.

But having to be kept under heavy sedation, surrounded by wires and medical equipment, was not sleep. What lay on that bed was the result of a lifetime of hurt and loneliness. If only she had found someone to open up with, someone to help her. She tried, but Shinji had been too scared. In his own hurt, he had focused only on himself and ignored her until it was too late. Only later, after a tearful confession, did he begin to understand her.

From then on he did everything he could for Asuka, retreating into the homely role he had always been comfortable with. It was the easiest, most immediate way he could find of pleasing her. Asuka seemed happy to treat him as a slave and step all over him so long as he let her—and he always let her. To her, he was just Stupid Shinji, the human doormat. But while that kind of relationship might not be very fair—in Asuka's own words—it became much more. Through his attention and devotion, Shinji was able to share his love, his life and his bed with Asuka. Every part of him was woven into her life.

He'd hoped that might be enough, but was it?

Then, as his mother's words sank in, he came up with another question.

"Are you saying I should give up on Asuka?" Shinji whispered, feeling the heaviness of his own heart in his voice. He did not move, nor avert his gaze as he normally did when faced with the harsh reality of something he would rather avoid.

Yui smiled, her voice soft. "I'm saying you shouldn't let that happen to her."

It was both admonition and advice, and somehow just the sort of thing his mother would say. Shinji was suddenly struck by the similarity with Rei Ayanami; how she managed to say a lot without really saying much.

"When I went into the Eva," Yui said, "I wanted to create a better future for you. Above all, I wanted to make you happy. But it was still what I wanted. True happiness is what you want for yourself. You have to chose to be happy. While you are the only one that can make that choice, it also takes others to help you understand what it means. Asuka did that for you. And in return, you did it for her."

"No." Shinji hesitated. "I failed her. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep her from being hurt. And now … "

He couldn't say it; it was still too painful for him.

"Don't underestimate yourself, Shinji," Yui said, the smile clinging to her face. "Asuka already knows what happiness is. There are no barriers in the heart except for the ones we make ourselves. You can't make others happy if they don't want to be. I don't believe that's the case with Asuka. She can come back, because she wants to."

Shinji looked at her carefully, a heavy feeling in his chest. "How do you know? How do you know she wants to be happy?"

"She didn't hit you."

"She's hit me lots," he said, sounding rather surly.

If anything, Yui's voice became even softer. "Shinji, if you can't understand the difference then there is really no hope. But that isn't true, is it?"

He was shaking his head before she finished—of course he understood the difference. But it wasn't that easy. She hadn't been there during the worst of it. She hadn't seen Asuka at her lowest. How could she ever know what they had been through?

And yet it occurred to him that she had been, in the form of Unit-01. Every time he connected to her and without knowing, he had shared his thoughts, his emotions, his heart with her. She knew him better, perhaps, than he knew himself. That was obvious not only in the fact that she had brought him here, but also in what she was asking him to do for Asuka.

The boy he had been just a few months before—the same boy who had gone to tug at the sheets of a comatose girl and then left her lying exposed while he ran away, the same boy who let others get hurt because he was too afraid to move and act to protect those he cared about—wouldn't have even tried.

Shinji Ikari was not that boy anymore.

In the silence that followed, Shinji began moving around the table towards the entrance hall. His mother stepped to the side.

He half expected her to stop him as he went by, if only to give him a final farewell, as Misato had done. But she didn't. He halted at the threshold, his hand on the wooden door frame, and looked back at her. She was now closer than at any other time. He fought the impossible urge to reach out and hug her and feel her warmth around him.

"It was nice to see you again," Shinji said, his voice soft.

"You too, Shinji." Yui tilted her head slightly to the side and smiled. "Take care of yourself. And the ones you love. Be proud that you can do that."

Those were words to live by—the words of a mother, and as good as any goodbye either one of them could make.

Taking a last look at her, trying to keep his head up, Shinji turned away and walked out of the apartment, and even as he did he knew there would be no going back. There never was.

Finally, he had grown up.

* * *

They moved into the hangar in a single file, rifles at the ready, sweeping the space beyond with the barrels. Miko had swiped her card at the door a second earlier, which had not been forced or blown apart. Nakayima was fairly certain that meant the hangar had not been breached, but Fuuka was not about to take any chances. Kneeling outside next to the backboard carrying Keiko, he heard only their heavy steps, the clanging of their gear, and then, finally, the all clear.

Nakayima exchanged a glance with Miko and saw the blonde girl sigh with relief. She was kneeling on the opposite end of the backboard. His question went unspoken.

Reaching down, Miko patted Keiko's shoulder. "You ready to go?"

The brunette nodded as best she could. "Yeah."

Nakayima took the bottom end of the backboard while Miko took the top. Together they lifted it, slowly and gently. Keiko winced as the straps dug into her wounded body, but she put on a brave face and didn't complain. As they crossed the doorway into the hangar they were met by Fuuka.

"Looks like we are in business," the American woman said, pointing to the aircraft which filled the small hangar.

Nakayima couldn't have missed the VTOL aircraft if he tried.

In their vertical configuration, the engine nacelles were almost as tall as the hangar was high, and although it worked on a different propulsion system, it was not all that different from the old Ospreys which the Americans had briefly operated at the end of the last century. The engines rotated on the mounts, changing the direction of travel and allowing great maneuverability while providing the characteristic vertical take-off and landing ability.

The forward fuselage was bulky, with a high canopy and two access hatches, narrowing down into a slender tail that ended in dual V-shaped rudders. It was colored in a tan and brown color scheme that matched the NERV uniforms and carried the fig leaf logo on its fuselage. The other commandos were moving around the vehicle, apparently checking its condition. Nakayima saw a shadow moving inside the cockpit windows.

Once again he wondered if they knew what they were doing. He didn't doubt they could be trained to fly, or at least operate, an aircraft, but VTOLs weren't exactly user-friendly and they were very tricky machines.

Saburo, his face black and nose visibly broken, climbed out of the VTOL's open passenger hatch and ran up to them. "It's flyable. Might be a bumpy ride."

Fuuka acknowledge him with a nod. "Hanako, get in the co-pilot's seat. Saburo, we need to see about getting those doors open." She made a gesture above them.

Nakayima looked up. The ceiling was essentially a large slab, its edges outlined in alternating yellow-black warning stripes. It would open to allow the aircraft to depart.

"You are going to have to override the launch control," Miko said. "Usually, you need authorization from MAGI—well, basically from the Commander. I assume you would have to submit a flight plan or something like that. The doors can be opened manually." She pointed to a small console along the wall, next to some levers locked into place by a red bracket and a thick padlock. "There."

Fuuka turned her head to Saburo.

He understood and instantly and darted towards the console.

"Everyone else get on board," Fuuka added for her troops, then waved a gloved finger at Miko and Nakayima. "You two, get our little VIP comfortable." Then she stepped up and brushed her hand through Keiko's dark hair with such tenderness it made Nakayima wonder if she had children of her own.

There was something about her and children—not something bad as such but definitely something she hadn't told them. Whatever it was, he had seen it before … in Misato Katsuragi's face of all places.

"Don't worry," Fuuka told Keiko. "We'll have martinis fixed up in a bit. How do you take yours?"

"Uh?" the brunette frowned, totally confused and slightly embarrassed, as if this were some big secret she was supposed to know all about.

Nakayima had to admit he wouldn't mind some alcohol just about now. He took at step towards the waiting VTOL. Miko hesitated, bringing him to a sudden halt, her gaze going from Saburo to Fuuka with uncertainty.

"It's locked. He's going to need—" She was interrupted by a gunshot, made even louder by the confined space. She jumped and gave a yelp, but mercifully did not drop the backboard.

Instead, it was the shattered padlock that fell to the floor, a round, smoking hole in the middle, followed by the locking bracket. Saburo pulled the now-accessible lever. There was a deep rumble overhead, and a thin line of light appeared on the deck below as the doors began to open.

Not the artificial light that shone perpetually inside the Geo-Front.

Sunlight.

Almost immediately, a thin curtain of dust began pouring in through the opening, growing heavier with every inch. Eventually the dust became earth and rocks, falling down and pelting the aircraft underneath it.

Everyone stared up in silent astonishment, carefully staying clear from the falling debris, a thin carpet of earth and dust accumulating on the hangar floor and the VTOL's flat surfaces.

Fully opened, the doors revealed an ashen sky beyond. The dome which covered the Geo-Front was gone, blasted out of existence by whatever weapon the JSSDF had deployed, leaving behind a massive gaping hole. Huge columns of black smoke were rising into the sky, tainting it a dark, ominous color, waving and dissipating as the wind picked them up and carried them aloft.

"God ..." Keiko whispered, her brown eyes wide. "What did they do?"

They all agreed—that much was evident in their faces—but it took a child to say the words. Nakayima envied her; she was only one who could let the fear show.

Fuuka placed a hand on Nakayima's shoulder and squeezed. He snapped his head, then nodded. Pushing on the backboard, he nudged Miko's backside with the plastic edge. She moved forward, still looking at the sky.

Despite the shock, they quickly arrived at the foot of the small ladder that led up to the passenger hatch, a rectangular doorway barely large enough to fit a broad-shouldered man. By then the smell of smoke had filled the hangar—the smell of burning and death. Nakayima recognized it clearly. It brought back many bad memories.

The American commandos helped carry Keiko into the aircraft, though Nakayima and Miko did most of the lifting. Saburo and Fuuka secured the rear, crouching down, their rifles leveled at the hangar door.

Trying to hold the backboard and the girl it carried as steady as he could, Nakayima climbed the steps into the VTOL. He had been inside many such aircraft in his life, but they were mostly stripped-down troop carriers or cargo transports. This one, however, was more like a private shuttle—befitting someone of Gendo Ikari's influence and power. The interior space was occupied by several rows of large seats, upholstered in plush black leather, with a narrow aisle in the middle. The floor was carpeted, and the walls on the forward and rear bulkheads were decorated by expensive-looking wood panels.

All things considered, it was a nice way to fly.

A nice way to go into exile, Nakayima reminded himself.

They hurriedly carried Keiko to the rear and set her down in the gap between the last row of seats and the rear bulkhead. Hanako rushed into the cockpit while Miko dropped to the carpet beside Keiko's head and took her hand, her face sullen with worry. Saburo and Fuuka were the last on board, closing the door behind them. Saburo went to join the others in the back. Fuuka turned towards the cockpit after Hanako, slinging her rifle over her shoulder as she went.

Leaving Keiko to Miko's care, Nakayima rushed back across the aisle and through the cockpit door. The cockpit was located on a higher level respective to the passenger cabin and accessible through a small set of stairs just inside the door. He climbed it and came up between the pilot and co-pilot's seat in a space so cramped that he could barely move his arms.

Overhead, the ashen sky was visible through a clear canopy, clouds of dust and smoke drifting slowly. The position of the cockpit was such that the nose of the aircraft could not be seen, only the radio antenna and the FLIR dome protruding from the front. It seemed even higher off the hangar deck than Nakayima had thought.

To his left and right, Fuuka and Hanako were flipping switches seemingly at random.

"No, that's not it," Fuuka said, her tone hassled. She pointed. "Try that one."

Hanako flipped another switch; Nakayima noticed she had the flight manual open in her blood-stained lap. A light he couldn't identify came on in the instrument panel. He noticed three multifunction displays dominated the panel, resembling small LCD screens with buttons located around them. Each were already showing telemetry and what he assumed to be on-board systems checks.

"What are you looking for?" Nakayima asked, feeling like a fish out of water. "These things don't exactly have ignition keys, do they?"

"The transponder," Fuuka said impatiently, her eyes scanning the instrument panel. "We have to turn off the transponder."

Nakayima frowned. "I thought you said you didn't expect them to have anything to shoot us down with."

She frowned at him. "Yes, well, just because there might not be anyone listening doesn't mean I want to go around shouting who we are. We'll be fine if we stay below radar. Probably. And the blast is likely to have taken out or disabled the AA. But we need to turn off the transponder. It's just going to broadcast our ID and location."

It was a sensible precaution, and one, Nakayima admitted, he wouldn't have thought about. Not for the first time, he was glad to have Fuuka along.

"I think I found it!" Hanako called out, her hand hovering over another button. She pushed it. Nothing happened—at least not that Nakayima could see.

Fuuka turned her head away from Nakayima, scanned the instrument panel and nodded. "Yeah, I think that's it. Check your fuel pumps and begin start-up sequence."

Hanako began flipping more switches, most of them located on a console to her left. A moment later, Nakayima heard a high-pitched whine somewhere behind him and on either side. The noise gained in intensity with each passing second as the turbines at the end of the wings spun up to speed, accompanied by a steady and growing vibration. It was not as bad as he remembered.

"What about Katsuragi?" he asked.

Fuuka had to raise her voice to be heard over the whine of the engines. "We have to wait for her."

"Sooner or later the JSSDF will get its act together. Then we'll be screwed." Nakayima didn't like saying it, but he had to be realistic. With the way things had turned out, staying might be suicide and he had other people's lives to think about.

"We have to wait." Fuuka looked at him, her face serious, eyes hard in a way he had never seen them. "You don't think she will call, do you? If those kids are dead … " She shook her head, and Nakayima knew she was right. "She's got too much to lose. She's going to be with those kids even if it means dying with them. But if they are alive she's going to do everything she can to get them out."

Nakayima pressed his lips together. His expression sullen, he thought of Miko and Keiko. "And if they are dead? And if she doesn't call?"

"If it were you down there, would you want me to go?" Fuuka placed her right hand on the throttle control, a large handle on the center console between her and Hanako, and slowly pushed it forward. The engine's whine became a ground-shaking roar. "It's not that I'm being reckless, Mister Nakayima. I know we can't stick around forever. But I'm going to stick around long enough to give those kids a chance. You understand?"

A resigned smirk came to Nakayima's face.

"There was a time when I would have called you sentimental." He was now practically having to yell into her ear. "But I've seen you with a rifle. No one who kills like that is worth arguing with."

"I haven't killed anybody that I liked," Fuuka replied, picking up the headset from the console. Hanako was already wearing one. "Not yet anyway. You better go back there and tell them to strap in. I can't make guarantees about the smoothness of this flight."

Nakayima nodded and left them to it, climbing down the ladder and back into the passenger cabin while closing the door behind. The noise was much less intense here, the engines' high-pitched whine more like a muffled roar accompanied by a steady vibration. The sound insulation was doubtlessly a concession to the comfort of the VIP passengers the craft was meant to carry.

Having taken Keiko off the backboard, the Americans and Miko were now securing her to one of the seats, strapping her in and using several pillows and blankets found in the overhead compartments to support her head and make her comfortable. She had to sit sideways, propping her broken leg on the seats next to her.

"It's going to be okay," Nakayima told her.

She looked up at him, her face skeptical. "You know, if you are going to try to comfort someone you should at least sound like you mean it."

* * *

Asuka just ran. She didn't know or care where, but every step she took made the throbbing ache in her chest a little less painful. She had to get out of there. She had to leave the memories and pain behind before they overwhelmed her. It was all she could do.

So she ran, as hard and fast as her bare feet could carry her. The pleated skirt of her school jumper swooshed around her knees. She closed her eye to wipe the tears away with the back of her hand, barely managing to stifle a sob. Only her right eye could cry—the sole survivor of a once beautiful set, an ever-present reminder of what she had been, what she lost, and what she would never have again. Like her mother.

Seeing Yui Ikari had driven that home. Asuka had spent her whole life trying to forget, to somehow insulate herself from the sense that she was forever broken by the death of her mother—the single most traumatic event of her youth. For a while, piloting Eva had allowed to do that, but then she lost Eva too. That was the moment when she first realized that all the things she thought about herself, the arrogance and pride and the desire to excel above any others, were nothing more than carefully constructed lies.

The lies allowed her to carry on living and find purpose in the otherwise hollow, aching void of her existence. But in the end a lie was still a lie. Now she knew what her nightmares always had. She couldn't find her mother again. She couldn't be happy with Shinji. She couldn't do anything but run.

Then something whispered in her ear—a voice not unlike her own.

Asuka stopped. Opening her eye, she looked around and found that she was standing in the middle of a deserted street. A red sun cast everything in a crimson hue, creating deep black shadows that seemed to swallow reality itself. But despite the eerie nature of the light, Asuka remembered she had been here before. Her tears abated, thought only because she was too shocked and horrified to cry.

The rows of once-upscale houses on both sides of the street were now little more than piles of broken rubble, wooden beams rising up like skeletal fingers towards the red sky; collapsed walls and caved in roofs looking as though they had been blown away by a huge explosion. The pavement was cracked and uneven, and covered with debris.

Asuka turned and looked behind her. As far as she could see, the landscape was utterly devastated, devoid of all life. There was no wind, nor any sound.

She didn't understand. How had she come here? These were the suburbs—there was no way she could have run this far so quickly. The first time it had taken days of mindless wandering, before starvation, thirst and exhaustion had claimed her, reducing her to a walking husk, no longer caring if she lived or died.

A flair of movement caught her attention. Whipping her head around, Asuka saw a hint of orange hair vanishing behind a house down the street.

"Hey!" Asuka cried out, breaking into a run.

She rounded the corner and came to a stop behind the house, turning her head every which way. The deserted streets stretched as far as she could see, row after row of abandoned houses and debris. But just as she was ready to give up she felt something hit her from behind. She turned as the object hit the ground. It was glossy red and pointy. Asuka recognized it immediately.

Reaching up, she touched where her own neural connectors should have been and found nothing. Their absence felt worse than being naked—nakedness was only physical.

The voice came again.

Asuka gritted her teeth. She ran further down the street, following the voice almost in a daze of emotions so numerous and powerful she didn't know what they were—anger, hatred, fear, despair, all mixed into a writhing mass. And with each step she took it didn't seem to matter. Those things were just different kinds of hurt.

Eventually she came upon a house she recognized. The front walls and roof had collapsed into a jagged pile of splintered wood, revealing the rooms within.

Asuka stood at the edge of the sidewalk for a moment, her head bowed, hands clenched into fists, then, gathering her courage, she walked around the outside of the house until she came upon the sight of a dilapidated bathroom. It wasn't really a room anymore, just three partially-crumbled walls that opened it to the street and a wooden floor.

She moved automatically, carefully threading her way amongst the debris to avoid the numerous splinters and shards of broken glass, and entered the bathroom through the gaping hole where the outside wall should have been. The wooden floorboards felt smooth and cool against the scalded soles of her feet, but it did little to ease the burning ache in her chest.

The filthy bathroom—the place where she had reached her lowest point—was as much of a wreck as Asuka remembered it, strewn with broken pieces of wood, plaster, metal and other building materials that had once been somebody's home. There was a bathtub on the far wall, filled with fetid brown water. A battered shower head hung overhead, dangling from a crooked metal pipe. The roof was gone, allowing a nearly unobstructed view of the red sky above. There was a chair next to the tub … and on it sat a stuffed doll.

Asuka felt sick. She pressed a hand gingerly against her lower stomach as she moved closer. The doll seemed to look up at her, a wide grin on its face. Its hair was made out of what looked like bits of orange-red cloth, and it had a single blue button in place of a right eye. Asuka stood over it for a moment, then stooped down and picked it up.

And suddenly it was easy to blame the doll for everything that had happened to her.

Asuka's face twisted into a snarl. Her hands tightened around the doll's neck.

It was the doll's fault that Mama had given her life to save her. It was the doll who had failed to defeat the Eva Series. It was the doll who broke her promise.

Asuka hated it, like she hated herself. She wished it would die and let her be together with the ones she loved. But what was the chance of that? The doll was a part of her—the broken and scarred little girl that would never heal, the wasted childhood, the haughty arrogance and ultimate failure, the unfulfilled promise of happiness. It was the worst of her, and she could no more kill the doll than she could take her own life. Hatred was the first natural reaction, but what happened when she couldn't hate anymore and all that was left was the hurt and grief?

Her brow wrinkled, and slowly her expression turned from anger to despair. The tears began to flow again, and not even the thought that she was utterly pathetic was enough to stop them. She didn't have the strength to continue strangling the doll, and instead pulled it to her chest and held it tightly like a frightened child.

Somehow it helped comfort her.

Asuka didn't know how long she stood there like that before she heard the sound of footsteps behind her and a voice calling her name. Despite herself, she turned her head and looked over her right shoulder as Shinji came into the bathroom through the open wall. This time, she didn't bother trying to hide the tears. There was no point. She had nowhere else to run.

Shinji wore his concern for her openly on his face. He seemed rather haggard, clad in a sleeveless white shirt and shorts. Like her, he was barefoot. He hesitated for a moment, and Asuka could see he was having trouble deciding what to do.

"Go away," she told him, her voice low and hoarse.

"You know I'm not going to do that."

And she did.

Asuka turned to look back at the bathtub. "I've been here before, after I couldn't pilot Eva. I didn't have anything left to live for. I didn't have anyone. So I just wandered off one day. I kept replaying it over and over in my mind—when the angel raped me, when I lost my mother, when I was told that my synch-ratio was zero and I was no longer an Eva pilot. My life had no meaning anymore. I ended up here, and I saw the tub. I felt so filthy. I was filth. I took my clothes off, and I climbed on the tub. And I waited. I waited to die."

"I …" Shinji whispered, the words catching in his throat. "I had no idea."

At least he didn't apologize, Asuka thought dejectedly.

"Of course not." She turned back, but her vision had become so blurry she was forced to rub her hand over her face. "You were so focused on your own misery that you couldn't be bothered seeing what was right in front of your face. How hurt I was. You lost someone, but I lost everything that was ever important to me. And did you even care?"

The guilty expression on Shinji's face was enough of an answer. To her surprise, he actually met her gaze even though it was clear it made him very uncomfortable. He was trying.

"I was so happy when I found my Mama again,"Asuka said. "And I had you. For the first time since I can remember, I was looking forward to my life. And then … " She felt the emotions welling up again. She lowered her head and cradled the doll quietly for a moment. "How many times is a little girl supposed to lose her mother?"

Shinji hesitated, struggling, as he usually did, to find the right thing to say. He took a careful step towards her, the floorboard creaking under his feet.

"You still have me," he finally said.

"You are not my mother!" Asuka yelled, recoiling violently. "Can't you understand that? Just because you are still here doesn't mean it'll stop hurting! It doesn't make everything alright!"

Shinji shook his head. There was something in his eyes—not the sympathy Asuka disliked so much but more like resignation.

"What's the use?" Asuka looked sullenly at the tub again, her face set as she fought to keep the painful memories from overwhelming her. She could almost see herself lying there, naked, broken and abandoned. She felt just like she had back then, as if her life were nothing more than a circle of misery and nothing she had ever done could change that.

"Nobody wants to be hurt, Asuka," Shinji said, his voice wavering. "But isn't that the same as being dead?"

Asuka was so shocked by those words that she failed to react when he took her shoulders and gently pulled her closer. Without thinking, she pressed needfully against him, struggling with the urge to continue crying. She stared out past his shoulder at the hole in the wall and the red landscape beyond.

It crossed her mind that there was a time when he wouldn't speak to her, let alone hold her or be anywhere near her. Yet that seemed so far away now, a sad remnant of a life she had lived and put behind her. She didn't want to go back to that. She had moved on. And despite all the hurt that had been thrown at her, she had discovered happiness with an idiotic boy who somehow found something in her to love.

Asuka couldn't imagine what that might be, but Shinji's touch—his warmth, his companionship were the only things she had to show for the years of self-hatred and suffering. And to feel them she had continue hurting.

Why couldn't she be happy without the hurt? Was it worth it to live in pain as long as you knew you were loved? And what if she couldn't be happy? What if the pain was for nothing? What then?

At that moment Asuka realized something very personal about herself.

"I don't want to die."

"Then don't." Shinji held her more tightly, squeezing the doll firmly between their bodies.

"That's easy for you to say." She looked down at herself. "You are still you. You are still whole. I'm … I'm just a stupid doll. I'm damaged. I always have been. Now the outside matches the inside."

"What about your promise?" Shinji said, practically whispering in her ear. "When we went shopping and you tried out that new bikini—the one I was really embarrassed about? Remember? You told me you promised your mother you would try to be happy. You said she would want you to."

In her despair, Asuka had indeed forgotten. She wasn't sure it made any difference now.

"She's dead, Shinji," she repeated, hating the quiver in her voice. "Who's going to hold me to it?"

"I will." Shinji released her and stepped back, keeping his hands on her shoulder. His dark blue eyes met her bright sapphire one. His face was more serious than Asuka had ever seen it before, and she knew he meant every word. "Promise it to me. Because even if it takes the rest of my life, I will help you keep that promise. I will make the hurt worth it. Every day. Every moment that we are together. I will do anything."

He really had no idea, Asuka thought. She almost laughed.

"You sound like you are just going to let me walk all over you."

Shinji dipped his head, in acceptance or resignation—or both. "If that makes you happy."

Did it? When she was a little girl and being spoiled was all she cared about it wouldn't have taken much more than that, but the sad truth was she didn't know what it would take to make her happy anymore, or if it was even a real possibility—not after what she had been through. The pain and horror were still too fresh; the loss too overwhelming. She didn't want Shinji to believe that she could be when it might never happen.

But she knew he was her only chance. In the last few weeks Shinji had made her happier than she had managed by herself in a lifetime—happier than she ever thought she could be. He had taken the shroud of empty loneliness from her and replaced it with fulfillment and companionship. And he was still there, still willing to do everything he could. She had to have faith in him, even if she had none in herself. He had earned that much.

After spending her whole life bragging about her strength and independence, it seemed so ironic.

Her features slackened. Shinji seemed to read her conclusion on her face.

"I've always been afraid of people relying on me," he said, filling in the void left by Asuka's silence. "I knew it would just be a matter of time before I let them down. And then they would make me feel awful. Every time I wanted to protect someone, I ended up hurting them instead. Even when I did nothing—especially when I did nothing. I won't let that happen now." He frowned at her. "But I can't do it alone. I can't make you happy if you don't want to be. You have to try."

Asuka shook her head. "I don't know."

"Promise me, Asuka." Shinji reached down in front of her. His eyes grew watery; if he were to blink, there would be tears running down his face. "Please. I need you."

Asuka couldn't remember how many times she had dreamed about hearing those words. They were a validation of her existence and her worth, but coming from Shinji they meant even more.

Still clutching the doll, she felt Shinji's fingers nudging insistently against hers. She understood what he wanted at an almost instinctive lever and loosened her grip, allowing him to take her hand. His eyes did not leave hers. Asuka found herself peering into the very soul of someone who would never abandon her or hurt her.

Everything she had ever wanted to have from another was standing right there, looking at her, touching her, making her feel as though she would never have to worry about being alone again. It was almost too much, and her heart felt heavy with the knowledge that she would never be able to pay him back. Shinji would give her everything he was because of how he felt about her and all she asked in return was the same promise she had made her mother—one she couldn't even keep on her own.

That was enough for him.

"Idiot." Asuka leaned forward and placed her head on his shoulder. "Next time just kiss me."

She couldn't say the words he wanted to hear, but she knew he understood her meaning beyond any doubt. Shinji had become quite good at seeing through the facade of false haughtiness she liked to put up to disguise the inner frailty, how she really felt. He understood her.

"Come on," Shinji said. "Let's go back. Everyone will be worried about us."

Asuka nodded into his shoulder.

Slowly, she wrapped her slender arms around Shinji and clutched the back of his shirt. He hugged her tightly in return, and she melted into his embrace, letting herself go as her senses filled with his warm presence, soothing the lingering raggedness in her chest. The doll dropped to the ground between their feet without either of them noticing, looking up at them silently.

Only after a long while, when her lungs felt heavy and her breath started to make bubbles, did Asuka open her eyes again—both of them—and realized she was floating in a deep sea of red, her arms still around Shinji, their naked bodies sinking ever deeper.

* * *

Too much time had passed. The world did not end, neither with a bang nor a whimper. And Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki knew Gendo Ikari had probably failed.

Standing on the darkened observation platform atop the control room bridge, NERV's second-in-command could not confirm any of this, of course. The MAGI had been hastily shut down to prevent the total contamination of the system. All their surveillance and monitoring capabilities went with it. The bridge crew had performed admirably given the circumstances, as Fuyutsuki had come to expect, even if they all knew that in following his orders they would be crippling themselves beyond repair. It was, as always, a necessary sacrifice.

Fuyutsuki almost laughed. He had lost track of how many times Ikari had used that justification for what NERV had done, and the atrocities they had committed. Lazy minds tended to drift towards the excuses that were familiar to them, usually as a simple matter of expediency; who could come up with a new excuse every time their decisions were questioned? But eventually the sacrifices deemed necessary added up to even greater costs than the things they were determined to prevent in the first place. Huygens' theorem at its best. They should have seen that coming. Perhaps Ritsuko had and she had acted. He would ask her if he ever saw her again.

He didn't have much hope.

By now they could scarcely be sure of the JSSDF movements inside or outside the Geo-Front, but there was no doubt in anyone's mind that they were coming. Central Dogma was not designed or built to withstand this sort of assault, and Major Katsuragi's report left little room as to their attacker's intentions. Even if the children were still alive, they were on their own, deep inside Terminal Dogma. As long as they stayed inside their Evas they would be safe, at least for a while. Until they surrendered to be executed or starved inside their entry-plugs.

Looking down at the deck below him, Fuyutsuki watched as operators moved around distributing and checking handguns and sub-machine guns. They looked scared. Most of them had not held a weapon since their training, and never shot at anything besides paper targets. Like the pilots, they were brave, exceptional people who, having grown up in world of tragedy and sadness, had found a purpose. And now they would die for it. More necessary sacrifices.

But the JSSDF were only men; the worst they could do was kill anyone related to NERV—and everyone in this room. They could not bend the future to their will like SEELE.

It occurred to Fuyutsuki that he was not all that different from the old men, but at least he was willing to recognize his own hypocrisy. It didn't make him better than them, just different. He could take that little bit of comfort to his grave.

A soft knocking sound caught everyone's attention. Fuyutsuki looked down where the lowermost part of the deck extended outwards into two balconies along the walls. The operators, knowing what was coming, ducked behind their consoles for cover, whispering quietly to reassure each other, guns at the ready. Fuyutsuki remained standing, his eyes fixed on the only door on the balcony to his right. Then, with a noise like the crack of thunder, the door flew off its heavy frame, bounced against the balcony railing and fell into the pit beyond.

Smoke billowed out from the shattered door frame, but even so Fuyutsuki saw a dozen bulky shapes carrying riot shields emerge from the door and move perpendicular across the width of the balcony to a line. There were no faces, just helmets and boots padding distinctively on the metal deck. Their uniforms were gray and green camouflage patterns, making them seem like a concrete wall.

A young operator crouching besides Lieutenant Aoba peered over the front of his console and fired a burst from his MP-5 sub-machine gun. The bullets ricocheted off the thick metal shields and the deck. The riot line tightened defensively.

"Hold your fire!" came a loud, mechanical voice.

Fuyutsuki frowned. He recognized the spectacle for the show of force it was—meant to both deter and intimidate. People with the ability and willingness to crush their opposition regardless of the cost seldom delayed with such theatrics. He was curious.

"Perhaps you would care to stop by our visitor center and obtain a pass," Fuyutsuki said, his voice just loud enough to be audible down on the balcony but his tone remained mildly pleasant, not unlike that he used when lecturing a large audience. "I assure you, we have excellent guides, though I suppose you might have killed some of them already."

"We haven't killed anyone."

Now Fuyutsuki actually did laugh. "I have pictures."

He knew from first hand experience that NERV, the Evas, and their pilots could elicit strong emotions from people. The way the Second Child had been ostracized after the incident with Unit-08 was proof of that. A unit of the JSSDF_ could_ have gone rogue, disobeying orders and taking matters in their own hands in the heat of battle. But just because something could happen didn't mean it had.

There was a pause. A minute later the wall of shields parted and a single figure stepped forward. His features were covered by his low-hanging helmet and the dim lighting of the room but he carried a loudspeaker and the stiff backed posture of someone used to giving orders. He held the back of the loudspeaker to his mouth.

"Where is Misato Katsuragi?"

"She has pressing business elsewhere," Fuyutsuki replied. "I am Sub-Commander—"

"With all due respect, sir, I know who you are," the man sounded annoyed, and even in the poor lighting Fuyutsuki noticed his features twist.

Fuyutsuki nodded, keeping his voice and expression pleasant. It would be silly to take offense at a time like this. "Indeed. And who might you be?"

"My name is not important. I have been ordered by the Minister of the Interior to find Misato Katsuragi. If you cannot provide me with her location, I will accept your surrender and look elsewhere."

"Major Katsuragi is my subordinate," Fuyutsuki pointed out. "I am sure a man in your position must understand the necessities of the chain of command."

"The chain of command has no relevance in this situation."

"And why is that?"

"Because I have been assured that Misato Katsuragi can be trusted."

Fuyutsuki drew his eyebrows together in thought. "And what will you do when you find her? You must be aware that Major Katsuragi had to rescue the Children from some of your death squads. She has seen the bodies of people she has worked with and cared about. What makes you think she wouldn't just shoot you on sight?"

It was the second time Fuyutsuki doubted his words—his truthfulness. He might as well have questioned the man's honor. Such things carried great weight with these military types, part of the hubris that came with finding yourself elevated above others.

"I have no knowledge of any death squads," the man said again, a hint of anger in his voice. "My orders explicitly prohibit reckless harm to NERV's assets or its personnel."

"Did your orders include destroying the Geo-Front?" Fuyutsuki said, carefully watching for a reaction.

"That was a mistake, it would appear."

"And the Eva Series?"

The man ground his teeth visibly. "You are testing my patience, sir. If you cannot produce Katsuragi, I will find somebody else who can."

Fuyutsuki cast a glance at his own staff, still taking cover behind their consoles on the deck below, clumsily holding weapons, ready to defend this place to the end not from Angels but from men—from their own kind whom they had been pledged to protect. He was in awe of them, and it was for them more than anything else that he began to consider the possibility that the JSSDF officer might be telling the truth.

And then there was the matter of SEELE. The old men wouldn't have bothered with surrender terms unless it served their purpose, and in deploying the Eva Series they had made it clear that it didn't; they would have spared no level of destruction. This was their overture, the triumphant conclusion to their many years of planning. And they would have expected the only desirable outcome—death and immortality.

Surrender, of anyone involved, simply did not fit that plan.

"Forgive me," Fuyutsuki said finally, "but I am sure you understand that I cannot turn over a member of my staff on nothing but your word. We have seen great atrocities committed here today. I have no reason to believe anything you say."

"No, sir. And you don't have to. It is Katsuragi who will turn you over to me."

"I find that hard to believe."

"You don't have to," the man said. "My orders are to negotiate with Katsuragi. The best I can do for you is guarantee your safety."

Fuyutsuki considered that, but the fact that they were still talking instead of exchanging gunfire spoke louder than any words.

Ikari had failed, of that there was no doubt. And with that failure rested most of NERV's long-term goals, if not the very reason for its existence. The Eva Series, he had to assume, had been destroyed or incapacitated enough that it could not fulfill SEELE's plans, either. It was a strategic stalemate. Under such circumstances, they could do worse than trust their lives to Major Katsuragi.

Futyusuki turned to Makoto Hyuga, who was kneeling by his chair and holding a pistol alongside his fellow operators.

"Lieutenant, does your cell phone still work?"

The young operator nodded, his face uncertain.

Clasping his hands behind his back, Fuyutsuki uttered what he knew was sure to become his last order as NERV's Sub-Commander. And he was fine with that.

* * *

"Bastards," Misato muttered as she hung up her cell phone and leaned against the elevator's cold metal wall. The elevator was tiny, even by maintenance standards, barely a few square feet of space in a box. She looked at the numbers in front of her ticking down the sub-levels, a sinking sensation in her stomach.

Negotiate? Did the JSSDF seriously expect her to agree to anything after what they had done here today? She would be taking a huge risk with her life, and, more importantly, those of the people she cared about, with possibly nothing to gain from it. The JSSDF had already demonstrated their willingness to go after children. What was there beyond that? What guarantee did she have that they wouldn't simply execute everyone once she did as they wished?

Misato gritted her teeth and cursed again. She hated that they were putting her in this position. After all the secrets and lies, they were going to make her choose. Fuyutsuki outranked her. In Gendo Ikari's absence, he was the commander. The safety of the staff was his priority. Protecting Shinji and Asuka was Misato's.

And the best way she could do that now was to get them far away from the people who had tried to kill them. They would be safe with Fuuka and the others. They would have a chance to live out their lives.

But if they stayed—if _she_ stayed …

Something hardened in Misato's chest as she suddenly realized the JSSDF had said nothing about the children; for whatever reason, she was the one they wanted.

She tilted back her head, resting it against the wall, and closed her eyes. The last memory of her father slipped to mind, when, fifteen years before, he had given his life to place her in an escape capsule in Antarctica so she could survive Second Impact. She couldn't remember the look on his face, but he was covered in blood. He had not said anything before he closed the hatch and sent her away, perhaps hoping she would some day understand. She did now.

For a parent, letting go of a child was the most difficult thing they could ever do. Even her father, who had often seemed so cold and uncaring, had cared enough that he would rather die so she could live. He had to make the choice.

He chose to let her go.

The elevator doors opened silently, snapping Misato out of her thoughts. She hadn't even noticed the metal box had stopped or that the numbers had reached zero.

Taking a deep breath, Misato put her cell phone in her pocket and wearily pushed away from the wall. She stepped out of the elevator and was almost instantly hit by a wall of searing heat. The air was heavy, loaded with the smell of burning as if the whole place had been set on fire. A dark hallway stretched ahead of her, lacking even the usual emergency lights. Misato held a hand against her mouth to guard from the smell and reached the door on the opposite end. The door still worked; it slid open when Misato swiped Kaji's old ID card through the electronic lock.

Misato stepped through carefully, keeping her back to the wall and holding her gun out in front of her with both hands.

The chamber beyond was the stuff of nightmares.

Misato gasped, gagged and almost wretched. She had seen the blubbery creature hanging on a cross with a steel mask before. But now there were huge, mangled dead bodies everywhere—an ocean of LCL dotted by ruined arms and other odd shapes rising above the orange surface like tiny islands in a sea of blood. Some still had had bits and pieces of white armor clinging stubbornly to brown flesh, identifying them as what was left of the Eva Series. A huge, monstrous carcass lay crumpled on the concrete platform, flesh ripped, pieces of shattered bone protruding from gaping open wounds that bled huge pools onto the concrete.

Just beyond the platform stood a battered Unit-01 cradling a barely-recognizable Unit-02, holding it tightly in its arms, their exposed cores pressed together.

Misato felt her stomach drop, starring up in wide-eyed horror at Unit-01 and Unit-02. The Evas were completely still. The air seemed to wave around them, rising up from the LCL in a cloud of steam. There was almost no red left on Unit-02, only festering black flesh that resembled gangrene. Its head was a shapeless pulp, with only one of the four eyes still in their sockets. Its core seemed to have caved in, and Misato could see a seam of partially-melted material where it came together with Unit-01's core, like a weld.

The smell was horrid, a mixture of smoke, burned flesh and rotting death.

As she struggled to take in the carnage, Misato finally noticed the lone, pale figure of a nude girl with blue hair standing on the edge of the platform.

"Rei!" she yelled, lowering her gun and rushing to the albino girl.

Rei turned her head towards Misato just as she came to her side. Her face had its usual blank expression and she seemed surprisingly calm, even for her.

"What happened?" Misato asked, trying to keep her tone in check. She looked Rei over with distress, taking in the young girl's nudity. "Where are your clothes?"

"There was a fire."

Misato didn't know if she should hug her or shake her. She settled for neither "Are you hurt?" she asked.

Rei shook her head, but otherwise stood perfectly still. "No. I am fine. I … "

Misato felt a small wave of relief. "Where's the Commander? What happened?"

"I failed them," Rei said. Her gaze drifted towards the towering Eva units frozen above them. Something flickered in her red eyes that Misato couldn't identify. "I tried to understand. But I let them down. Everyone died because of me."

The words, and the calm emotionless manner in which they were delivered, tore a huge gash in Misato's chest. Nothing could have prepared her for the sudden riptide of emotion that washed everything away. It didn't matter that she had already considered the possibility, or that it was even the most likely outcome—two young children against an army. It didn't matter. It just didn't.

As she tore her eyes from Rei and looked up at the mangled remains of Unit-01 and Unit-02, Misato found her vision grew blurry with tears. Her shoulders slumped, her breath left her, leaving behind the heaviness of overwhelming loss. She let the tears roll; there seemed no point in pretending. She didn't make a sound.

In the silence and the darkness, time seemed to stand still. There was no motion, no life.

Then, with an almost unfathomable tenderness, Rei took her hand.

Misato looked down at her … and found she was smiling.

"You should have faith in them," Rei said. "They have earned it."

Misato frowned at her, confused and growing angry. Did Rei not care? She had never gotten along with Asuka, but what about Shinji? Misato had seen them together; they were almost like siblings. She had to care for him at least. And she had lost him. Faith wasn't going to bring him back.

"Rei ..."

Misato began shaking her head. Rei squeezed her hand. Then she heard what sounded like a loud splash. Her instincts kicked in automatically. She whirled around in the direction of the sound, towards the ocean of LCL, sweeping the edge of the platform with her gun as she placed herself in front of Rei to shield her from whatever attack might be coming.

The Eva units above them remained frozen in their embrace, like lovers caught in the throes of death, but the dim light in the vast cavern left huge patches of black where anything might hide. Misato waited, her gun ready, seeking out any movement.

There was none.

"Stay here," she told Rei after a moment. Carefully, she approached the edge of the platform, rubbing one hand over her eyes to clear her vision and holding out her gun with the other.

The edge of the platform was outlined by a warning stripe of alternating yellow and black chevrons which made the painted surface more slippery than the rough concrete. Watching her footing, Misato leaned forward and peered at the ocean of LCL beyond. The flat surface was a crystalline orange, broken only by the chunks of the mass production Eva units that had fallen in the battle, limbs scattered about, hands reaching out and locked in place as they clawed at the air, hideous shattered heads full of teeth, pouring brains and blood into wide-open mouths. Everything was dead.

The next time Misato heard the noise it was much closer.

She whipped her head around, her gaze following the platform to a maintenance ladder that led down into the LCL. Tied to the base of the ladder was a small, partially-submerged inflatable raft. And holding on to the lowest rung was a hand.

The hand was accompanied by a mop of soaked orange-red hair Misato would recognize anywhere. Her heart leaped into her throat.

"Asuka!"

In a burst of sheer adrenaline, Misato lowered her gun and ran.

She reached the top of the ladder at full speed. Skidding to a halt, she grabbed the metal railings curving around the edge and hastily descended the first few rungs. She reached down and took the hand, squeezing it tightly. It didn't squeeze back. Gritting her teeth, she pulled up with all her strength.

Asuka's naked upper body emerged from the LCL, followed by Shinji's, limp and equally naked. The redhead had one arm wrapped around his slender torso, holding him up as best she could. He began to slip almost immediately.

"Asuka, grab the ladder," Misato grunted. "I can't pull both of you out."

Asuka shook her head frantically.

Less than a second later Rei appeared at the top of the ladder and took Asuka's hand. Moving quickly, Misato let go and climbed down the ladder. She placed herself fully alongside the teenagers, LCL up to her chest, and draped one of Shinji's arms across her shoulders. His body was cold, but he wasn't as heavy as she expected.

"I got him," Misato said to Asuka, and felt her grip on the boy slacken. As Rei struggled to pull the redheaded girl over the edge onto the platform, dripping LCL from head to toes, she carried him up and lay him on the platform next to Asuka. A puddle quickly began to form around their nude bodies.

Dropping to her knees, breathing hard, Misato took Shinji's wet shoulders and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were closed. He didn't respond.

Misato used her fingers to check his pulse and pressed her ear close to his mouth to listen for his breathing—nothing. Recalling training she never thought she'd ever need, she placed her palms together on his chest, arms stiff, and gave a firm push. Shinji coughed, LCL erupting out of his mouth. She listened again.

It was very faint and shallow, but he was breathing.

Feeling a small measure of relief, Misato straightened up and looked over to Asuka, lying face-down nearby, her long hair sticking to her bare skin like a wet orange sheet.

Misato gestured to Rei, who was just standing there as if in a trance.

Rei knelt next to Asuka, but as soon as she placed her hands on her the redhead began trying to push her off, coughing and heaving LCL. Rei held her shoulders, speaking to her in a soothing tone and helping her turn over on her side. For a moment Asuka lay there looking up at the albino girl she had so often abused, an expression of resignation and maybe a little regret on her face. Then her eyes rolled back and she slipped away.

"Rei?" Misato's voice was worried. "How is she? Is she breathing?"

Rei examined Asuka's unconscious form with a care that bordered on reverence, feeling her pulse and placing an ear to her mouth.

"Yes."

Indeed, Misato could see Asuka's bare chest moving slowly. That was enough for now—it had to be. With no way to determine internal injuries or contamination of any kind, there was little they could do. Misato looked at Shinji. His own chest was now rising and falling as he breathed, his eyes still closed. The LCL made his short brown bangs stick to his forehead. Misato reached down absently and brushed them aside.

The emotions became too much. Sitting back on her heels, she struggled not to cry again. She knew that wasn't going to help anyone, and Rei was watching her. She had to keep it together, to focus on what she needed to do now, to think.

"Major Katsuragi," Rei whispered. "Are you alright?"

Misato lifted her head and met Rei's eyes as evenly as she could. "I … don't know."

Rei waited, perhaps thinking there was more, then said, "You cannot heal others before you heal yourself."

"What does that even mean, Rei?" Misato spat, belatedly realizing how angry she sounded. She dropped her head, her voice softening to little more than a whisper. "I don't want to heal them. I know I can't do that. I just want to protect them. Just talking about it isn't going to make that happen. I had a plan, but now that plan means abandoning other people who depend on me. No matter what I do, someone is going to get hurt."

"That is always going to happen. The only thing you can do is choose." Rei looked at the unconscious teenagers. "We all have."

Misato knew she was right. Asuka and Shinji had done their part and now it was her turn. This was her decision, but made for others instead of herself. At least this way they would be alive to blame her. They would be safe.

Fingers slick with LCL, Misato reached into her pocket and flipped open her cell phone. She looked at the screen, wondering for a moment if this was how Kaji had felt before he placed his final call, apologizing to her for all the things he could never say. And she remembered the words she had heard over and over a thousand times on her answering machine, whenever she was home alone and nobody was listening.

Move forward.

So she would—and she hoped those she was leaving behind forgave her.

Misato held the cell phone to her ear. It rang only once, but it felt like an eternity. Then she heard Fuuka on the other side.

"It's me," Misato said, her voice surprisingly loud and clear. "I need you."

* * *

The hologram showed a small VTOL aircraft leaving the massive sinkhole where the center of Tokyo-3 had once stood. Around the hologram, twelve faceless monoliths towered silently in a circle. The image they were watching, a composite of satellite imagery and salvaged surveillance video feeds, was already a few hours old.

"We have not been able to determine the nature of the aircraft's crew," SEELE 01 said, his voice low and mechanical. "Early reports we have intercepted from the JSSDF units in the facility suggest it is the pilots and their minders."

"What about Ikari?" another of the faceless monoliths asked.

"There are no reports of him being in the facility. Apparently the JSSDF offered NERV the possibility of surrender so long as they were placed into contact with Major Katsuragi. Two hours ago, when it became obvious Katsuragi would not respond, the staff was taken into custody. We do not know any more at this time."

"This is unacceptable," SEELE 03 said. "The JSSDF is acting on its own. If Ikari was offered asylum by the Americans—"

"No," SEELE 01 interrupted. "Unit-01 is still in the facility. Ikari would never part with it."

"Then he is dead," SEELE 07 said. "Perhaps this is not such a disaster after all."

"Only time will tell, gentlemen," SEELE 01 said. "We cannot yet know the full scope of these events. The JSSDF seems determined to act on its own, and the Americans are likely to deny any involvement. The Eva Series can be rebuilt, but we must account for Adam."

"Indeed," SEELE 05 said. "The situation is troubling, but not entirely out of control. There is hope."

"There is always hope," SEELE 01's mechanical voiced boomed through the room, followed by a chorus of agreement.

One by one the monoliths disappeared in descending order, leaving pitch blackness where they stood. When the SEELE-02 slab vanished, it revealed a thin man sitting on a console, short black hair streaked with white, black eyes almost as deep as the space around him. When the SEELE-01 monolith vanished, an even older man sat there, stocky and hunched over with age. His hair was white, and his face, what could be seen underneath a thick visor, was wrinkled with folds of sagging skin. They were the only two real occupants in the room. It was not by coincidence.

The thin man stood, still looking at the hologram in the middle of the room. It now showed various images of NERV personnel being cleared out of Central Dogma, their hands above their heads like criminals or prisoners.

"No sign of Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki?" the thin man said.

"It is unlikely the Ministry would disclose his whereabouts at this time," Lorenz Keel said, his voice gruff. He seemed incapable or unwilling to move. "I have reason to believe he is in custody. A shame really. He will be debriefed."

"He might talk."

"What can he tell them that might hurt us?" Keel said.

"The truth." The thin man turned to face Keel. "He has no reason to lie. Not for Ikari. And certainly not for us."

"The truth is a single man's narrow perception of reality," Keel replied. "What can he tell them that will hurt us? They will only hear what they want to hear. And what they want to understand. In any case, it will take years to sort out. We will be prepared. We will rebuild, and we will overcome."

The thin man looked back at the hologram, taking in every detail of the frames.

"Is there any word on your son?" Keel suddenly asked. "He was inside the Geo-Front at the time of the attack, was he not?"

"Yes, I believe so. His name is not on any of the lists."

"Neither is Katsuragi's. Nor any of the pilots." Keel rose slowly. There was heaviness about him that seemed supernatural, but his age took nothing away from a man that could command governments with little more than strongly-worded letters. "Very telling, isn't it?"

As Keel lumbered towards the hologram, the thin man slipped a hand into his pocket and felt the butt of his gun.

Doctor Hideki Nakayima had already made up his mind. It was the whole reason he had arranged to be here in person when telepresence might had sufficed.

"Very. A Father can learn a lot from his son."

* * *

The darkness slowly resolved itself into light and blurry shapes, and Shinji realized he had opened his eyes. He lay on his back, staring at a ceiling he didn't know, hearing the gentle, rhythmic sound of his own breathing. His mind was blank, and it seemed as though his body was made out of lead. He was warm, covered in a thick white blanket and lying on something soft and surrounded by walls on three sides like a kind of bunk.

After a moment of staring at nothing, his gaze moved down. His vision began to clear as he blinked, and he recognized a pretty, soft-featured face holding two surreal red eyes and a short blue head of hair leaning over him.

"Rei ..." Shinji groaned, his voice very hoarse as if he had been screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Yes," Rei said, reaching out and flicking something outside the bunk. An intense light suddenly assaulted Shinji's eyes. "Stay calm. You are exhausted."

Shinji rose onto his elbows, wincing against the light. He felt as though he had taken a beating, which he had of course. He raised his arm to rub his eyes and looked at his right hand. There was a bandage around his wrist securing an IV but he found no sign of the burns he had suffered during the battle with the Eva Series. His hearing had also returned.

He turned his head to Rei, furrowing his brow. She was to his left on the open side of the bunk, wearing a loose gown that was noticeably oversized, and almost as white as her skin. Her pale face was the usual mask of pleasant neutrality.

As Rei moved back to give him a little more room, Shinji saw Asuka curled up on another bunk, tucked in under a white blanket. Her golden-red hair spilled in curls like waves of fire, loose and unkempt, over a thick pillow. A thin plastic tube trailed from her right wrist to a clear orange bag hanging from a hook on the top corner of the bunk which was barely high enough to allow for someone to sit inside of it.

"She is asleep now," Rei said, following his gaze. "She will be okay."

Shinji nodded. It seemed like the only thing he could do. He couldn't begin to imagine the toll their ordeal had taken on Asuka, how it would change her, but he knew she wouldn't be here if she didn't think she could be happy. And he knew the burden that placed on his shoulders.

He sat up slowly and rubbed an arm across his eyes. Glancing around, he noticed how cramped everything was. Asuka's bunk was barely three feet away, across a narrow aisle which was sealed off by curtains at both ends.

"Where … where are we?"

"You are on board the USS Virginia," Rei said. "After you came back, Major Katsuragi had us extracted from the Geo-Front. It seems she had made such arrangements with your escorts beforehand. She believed we will be safe here."

A hollow ache sprang up in Shinji's chest as the significance of those words sank in. He sat there in silence, staring out at nothing, and wondered if he really could have been naïve enough to think he could go back home at the end of day.

Sadly, he realized at least a part of him had. But that wasn't going to happen now. He would never set foot in Misato's apartment again, or cook dinner in the crowded kitchen, or play his cello, or lay on his bed and listen to his S-DAT, or go out with his friends. That life was finished.

And Asuka had known all along—she had tried to tell him as much in the Eva cages, when all he could do was worry.

Shinji looked again at the sleeping redhead, needing to make sure she was really there, and the emptiness in his chest filled in a little. Slowly, almost absently, he began moving to the edge of the bunk and made an effort to stand. It quickly became clear he couldn't even get over the safety railing. Rei leaned in and lowered it.

"Sorry," he told her, not really knowing why he was apologizing.

"There is no reason to be sorry." Rei took his right arm and put it around her shoulder, then wrapped her left arm around his waist and got him up. Her touch was gentle but firm and he found himself leaning against her. As he slipped completely from under the sheet, he realized he was wearing what looked like an oversized set of pajamas done in white with an anchor and dolphin emblem on the sleeve.

It took him only two shaky steps to cross the narrow aisle, trailing the IV's plastic tube behind him. Rei lowered the railing on Asuka's bunk and helped Shinji sit, then went to get his IV bag. Clutching the front of his gown, Shinji tried to catch his breath and watched Asuka carefully.

The injuries she had sustained during the fight with the Eva Series had vanished. Her pretty, unblemished face was relaxed, eyes closed, lips slightly parted. Her arms were tucked in protectively to her chest, her right hand resting on the pillow next to her face, palm up. Shinji could see hints of a gown similar to Rei's. There was not a taut muscle in her slender body; she looked exactly as she always did when she slept: innocent and vulnerable, a baby in her mother's bosom.

This was a side of herself Asuka didn't like anyone to see, and he understood why.

He also understood why it was important that someone did.

Reaching down slowly, Shinji stroked Asuka's face with his hand and brushed away the thick bangs of orange-red hair from her forehead. Asuka stirred under the sheets in response, nuzzling her head insistently against the pillow, wanting to sleep. Shinji watched her intently but made no move to wake her.

He barely noticed when Rei returned to his side and hung his IV bag on a hook besides Asuka's. Looking up at her, he found a pair of red eyes feathered by a familiar caring that was both sad and beautiful. He frowned curiously.

Rei blushed, as if she had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. Red was not her color, but this subtle shade seemed to suit her.

"I … I will inform Major Katsuragi that you are awake," Rei said, stammering a little. She moved to the privacy curtain on the far side of the bunk. There she stopped, grasping the edge of the curtain and looking over her shoulder. "She will be very glad to hear it. I am glad as well. For both of you."

"Thank you, Rei," Shinji whispered, his voice almost as weary as he felt.

Rei smiled at him—the same smile he had seen on his mother's face—and slipped out through the curtain.

Shinji watched her go, then, silently, turned back to Asuka. His hand lingered on her face, a comforting reminder even in her dreams that he was still with her. That he always would be.

It was a promise.

* * *

**The End.**


End file.
